Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

The day my son Adam made his dragon, this is what I came up with.  I call him the Sandman and I based him upon the nocturnal visitor familiar in children’s stories.  As Adam and I walked along the river, I found the blue plastic sand shovel and the idea for this piece fell into place.

While my son and I worked under the willow trees we were serenaded by the cicadas.  The rising and falling buzzing courtship song of the males is a familiar sound of summer.  This year I’ve noticed them more at the Falls than ever before.  Now I understand why the cicada killer wasps are also more common.  I wonder if the wasps detect their prey by sight or do they zero in on the cicada’s sound?

This figure is made from the found materials that have become my vocabulary for my Falls works.   Polystyrene foam form the head and body.  Each piece of foam has traveled down the Ohio River from who knows where?  I only use materials that I find in the park and over the years I have been able to keep to this personal rule because so much stuff shows up here through periodic flooding.  The Styrofoam is shaped by natural processes and I add other natural and artificial materials as I see fit and come across them in the debris of the park.

The Sandman comes to the Falls of the Ohio because of the quality of the sand.  He wanders along the river’s shore and carefully selects the right sand which he stores in a small bottle.  A little bit of sand goes a long way.  The bottle is worn close to the body with the help of a little waste fishing line which is unfortunately plentiful at the moment.  The Sandman may appear a bit ghostly, but he’s harmless.  His appearance has more to do with the unseen and unknown quality of the night.  So, when you rub the sleep from your eyes in the morning…you will know where the sand comes from.  It’s a gift from the Ohio River formed over deep time.  Sweet dreams.