The Ohio River is currently on the rise. I think by now, the plein air studio I’ve been using all these past months is under water. I’m sure the next time I walk this landscape it will have been rearranged. With spring coming this will be a new place once again and with it a new cycle of debris and artifacts will have washed ashore. I was looking through several months of images shot at the Falls of the Ohio and chose more pictures of toys that I have come across. I’ll end this post with a bonus feature!
And now for the bonus!! Usually after a flood it is common to find logs and sticks that have been snagged by trees as in the above image. On occasion the retreating waters deposit other objects like strange fruits for me to find. Here are a couple more found toys that illustrate this.
Here’s the last toy in three images. Thanks, and see you after the flood.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 
I thought of you today, wondering how high the water is getting as our rivers up here are flooded way above the flood line. I decided the little red-headed doll with burrs in her hair looks like a relative of “Big Red”.
Hi Leslie, By now, both Big Red and her sister are gone…but I’m sure I will find their relatives!
for a part i grew up on a ship on the rivers and half of my toys were fished out of the river . My favourite were a red plastic horse and a tiny teddy-bear with only one arm
Hi Magda…why do you think so many toys end up in the river? I liked that you saved them and played with them again.
I *really* love what happens to dolls in the river–they become totally terrifying! I also love what happens to toys when the river washes away their original colors and eats away the familiar parts… I don’t think I could ever get sick of looking at river-battered toys.
I have a big “creepy doll” photo collection and have actually resisted posting many of them because they can be disturbing images even though they are just discarded toys. I have found so many of them over the years and often wonder how they got into the river to begin with? Were they escaping or were the girls themselves pitching them into the waves as a way of rejecting gender stereotypes that they may have instinctively recognized? The patina on many of these toys is nice and I like seeing the signs of wear.
Toy trees! What an odd sight! How long does it take for the river to go down?
The leg is creepy! Is the car in the last picture for a child? It looks full size. If it is, I find it outrageous that someone would just dump it in the river! What do they expect to happen to it? just disappear?
Love the strange little hair curlers in the one legged dolls hair 🙂 and the towing hippo (going nowhere for the moment)
A strange and fascinating collection!
Hi Lynda, Why this stuff winds up in the river is probably as variable as the items that get washed away? I find a lot of this stuff to be both creepy and melancholy…come to think of it, these are the same notions that come across in the Toy Story movies. We imprint so much upon these objects. I find all these childhood connections interacting a lot with my own boyhood memories. The river can go down fairly quickly in just a matter of days and I look forward to seeing this rearranged landscape.
What an assortment–people should see your finds before they shop in another store. Hey, fire truck sale down by the river–just come and take it away!
Hi Al–these are sort of “creepy” because of their “toy” connection.
Hi.
I hear you. I try to tread lightly, but with purpose. I think if people are too turned off by all this, their willingness to engage and reconsider suffers.