Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

On a warm Kentuckiana weekend I spent as much time along the river as I could “safely” justify doing.  Days like this don’t stick around forever.   Before you know it, the chill in the air will hang there for months until it is relieved by Spring.   On Saturday, there was the street wide clean-up with the family and neighbors, but after that I was gone for a few hours.  The following couple of posts are the things I encountered and made during these golden moments.

This was the only humanoid-type figure I made over the weekend.  He has a decidedly happy expression on his face that comes from being created on a perfect day.  I moved this piece all over the place, but decided that I liked it best posed next to this glowing wild grapevine.  The glasses on his head lend an additional carefree attitude to this work.  His eyes are plastic fishing bobbers and his nose is a corn cob.  The ears are the bottom of an aluminum can I split in two with my pocket knife.  The mouth is a red piece of plastic I found.  I embedded a yellow reflector into his chest for added visibility.  The rest is Styrofoam and sticks courtesy of man and the Ohio River.

I found a couple of other “happy” objects along the western section of the park and photographed them in place.  The first looks to be a green, bouncy, child’s toy and I wondered how far this thing floated to get here?  The second image takes me back to my childhood.  Isn’t it interesting that we can recognize all things Kool-aid from this fragment of a child’s canteen?  Of all the ways there are to render a face…this one remains distinctive.  Perhaps it’s in the comma-shape eyes and eyebrows?

I lost myself noticing how much things change in the park depending on the season.  With the leaves off of the trees, all of a sudden the view gets large again.  I spent a few hours collecting materials that washed up here last week including four large Styrofoam sections tumbled by the river.  I had hoped to be able to make something from these in short order, but realized that they were out of scale to my ideas.  So, I hauled them up to my studio site where they look like big piles of snow melting in the woods.  I figure I have probably till January’s high waters to make something from them.

I left this piece standing to await whatever fate has in store for it.  The other found object pieces I made are all birds.  My gallery representative requested a few to use for a small show in a hotel I believe?  As I made them, I photographed them in different places at the Falls.  I have also been busy trying to mount these sculptures onto bases made from driftwood.  The experience of seeing my “faux” birds in the woods is totally different from seeing them as more formal art objects.  By now, I think you know which I prefer seeing.  I’ll show them to you, later this week.