I thought I would post a recent collection of photographs of some of the stuff I’ve come across since mid April. The river has been very up and down during this time and accessing the shoreline hasn’t always been possible. Whenever I come out to the Falls, I’m also interested in what else I can find in addition to what I can make from some of this stuff. I’ll start with this “Sunny Ball” I found lying in a pool of water with a sheen on it! I see this frequently as it surfaces through the sands. Here’s another.
The iridescence isn’t just motor oil (although there has to be some of that here) but also includes decaying organic matter in the form of old leaves. In this case, there is also fluff from cottonwood trees.
Nice recent cracks in the mud. I’m not sure what the blue plastic object is, but the tracks going through this scene are from a white-tail deer. How about some more found faces? Here’s another lost ball with images.
I found this ball when Julia accompanied me. Here’s another image from that adventure with a Halloween theme.
For those of you unfamiliar with this American custom, on October 31, children go door to door in their neighborhoods in costume and collect candy. These plastic jack-o-lanterns are popular for storing the candy. Here’s another I recently came across peeking out among the debris.
I also find many other figurative toys. The more traditional dolls I come across frequently make disturbing images. I’ll save those for another time but I think these are interesting as well.
His shirt says “Forty the Legend Continues”. I wonder if this is a novelty item from a barbeque establishment along the river?
Another pig-themed…not certain what this is? It could be the lid from something and was about two feet across and heavy. His eyes caught me as I walked across the sand.
Continuing with pigs…here’s a plastic stopper? I found recently. Maybe this belongs with a bottle of pig perfume? Nice bow tie.
I’m walking along looking and listening for birds when my eyes are drawn downward and I see a “Big Bird” I wasn’t expecting! I lifted it off the ground and a quick photo is taken at the place of discovery.
I came across this lying on the sand and maybe because of the orange color, may be a Halloween novelty too? It was flat and lightweight and the white spinner-thing spins. Perhaps off a glider toy? Anyway, it has personality as does my next image.
The “A” is for Alvin of the Chimpmunks’ fame. He is a little worse for wear. The river is very tough on everything. He is posed by some carpeting that washed ashore near this object.
Came across this just yesterday and I “love” (almost hate to say this) the patina on this plastic snowman bottle. I popped this into my collecting bag. I imagine this must have been floating out on the river for a while to acquire this surface color. Not sure what I will eventually do with it. I think that’s about it for now. I have one more image, also from yesterday. I came across a really large expanse of beach left high and dry and this was its surface. This is what’s created when a really large piece of Styrofoam gets chewed on by the river and floating logs…a Styro-aggragate.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 
These finds are amazing! I zoomed right into the pictures. the balls are surreal – totally out of context with their environment which makes their smiling faces almost sinister, though ironically the Halloween masks lose their impact (curious).
Forty the legend and Alvin look very sad buried in the sand. I wonder just how long these have been in the river to get in that condition?
I really like the pattina on the snowman too. This bottle needs filling with ‘River scent’ and plugged with the pig stopper:) I’m sure it would take off (literally!)
Perhaps you could make some animals to corrospond with River pig and snow stopper!
I also like the way you have juxtoposed the iridescent decaying image with the cracked dry deer track image. That river has got so many moods – and non of them predictable, which makes it all the more interesting! Another fine post indeed!
Lynda, Thanks for the compliments and suggestions. You are among the few to comment and keep my content from being more than stuff that flows under the bridge.
It’s GOOD content and a BRILLIANT blog to be proud of Al! Very informed and VERY well written! My hubby had a music blog with a friend once and they got into the top ten blogs with thousands of viewers a day. They would get perhaps one comment for every 5,000! Some people are a bit shy on posting comments I guess. I wonder why?
I wouldn’t need thousands of people. My best day I had 166 visits and that seemed like a lot to me. I guess I thought there would be more conversation occuring through it all…more similar minds than has been found thus far. A friend suggested doing more social media stuff, but when I check out what’s happening on other blogs that do this…the results seem superficial to me. I would rather have the few meaty replies than all the twittering. My mind does boggle some when I think there must be millions of blogs now all searching for folks to connect with.
Yes, you’re quite right of course Al, it’s the coversation that means a lot. I lost count of the ‘Is there anybody there?’ types of posts I did!
Sometimes ‘cool’ just doesn’t cut it:) as a comment (but when mine first started ‘cool’ was better than nothing’ 🙂
As artists we are taught to convey what we mean – to explain WHY we like something and hopefully our own comments on others posts convey this.
I can’t say I get a bigger audience being on Twitter, but it is a way of telling people you posted another post (people not on wordpress)
Keep plugging away, I think regular posts do help (though when I’ve finished my blog a day which I pledged to do for a year – I’ll slow down a bit)
You have one of the best ORIGINAL blogs on wordpress – believe it and I do feel that this shall be recognised!
What would archaeologists from the future deduce about our culture from some of these objects? It’s hard to figure out now – like the guy with the twirly thing, and a ‘D’ on his glasses?….pig purfume….don’t get this country boy started….
Hi Don! Yes, I agree about the archeaologists, but what does it say now?
I checked out your Yew Dell post…good luck with that show.