Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

June began all bare bones in the aftermath of our minor flooding and now at month’s end it passes overgrown with vines.  Near the tainter gates, a massive raft of driftwood lies intertwined with the landscape.  We haven’t seen such a wooden mound in many years.  June had some odd and compelling images and here are a few more before we turn the page.

The willow trees are the heroes here tenaciously clinging to the sand and clay.  This taunts the Ohio River which sends high water and a battering ram of floating logs their way every once in a while.

Willow wood is flexible and the sustained high water’s flow is echoed in the shape of these trees.  I imagine the river as an artist shaping its garden at the Falls of the Ohio.  There’s a bit of that bonsai- look if you can get past the larger scale.

The willows’ branches do their part in snagging some of the flotsam and jetsam floating loosely in the retreating waters.  Branches become decorated with plastic bags, fraying barge cables, driftwood, the occasional dead deer, refrigerators, fishing line, and whatever is present in the Ohio River.

Here plastic sheeting has been caught and stretched some length across these trees.  It looked like something some installation artist might attempt.  I also came across a “nylon crinoid”…in actuality, an unraveling barge cable that made me think of the extinct sea lilies of ancient oceans and in fossils which are pages in the book of life.

Walking across the sand I came across this unusual view which gave me the idea for the title of this post.  Very nonchalantly, this mostly destroyed hippopotamus was standing its ground.  I’ve read somewhere in a book that the name “hippopotamus” means “river horse” in some African language?

Another view, but this one from the top.

I made another Styrofoam figure on this day.  I imagine this as being a figure of some exotic Spanish dancer with fancy combs in her hair.  I won’t say this is the best figure I’ve ever made, but it’s also not the worst.  It just happens to be how things turned out when I picked this group of materials and objects to make something with at that particular moment.

Now for a full length view.  That pink radiating thing is made of plastic and helps to add other visual interest.

Before leaving for home on this day.  I watched a couple of guys using a throw net to catch shad to use for fishing bait.  I couldn’t help but see them in the context of the Ohio River which was so many more feet above their heads.  Here we are at the bottom of the valley.

Since I’ve used the book metaphor a few times in this post…it’s fitting that I end with this picture taken on this day.  It’s really a small plastic photo album whose transparent sleeves were full of coal gravel and water.  Until next time…