Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

A view from last weekend when the water level was dropping and the sun was shining and welcoming.  Curiosity overwhelmed me and I ventured forth over the driftwood piles and muddy riverbanks.  Looks like most of the driftwood at the Interpretive Center has been washed away, however, under the railroad bridge, a sizeable mound of twisted matter has accumulated.  To avoid sinking ankle-deep in mud…I gingerly walk on the backs of huge logs and pick my way through the debris field.

This most recent bit of flooding has deposited a large number of plastic drinking bottles onto this landscape.  I am assuming that the river isn’t through rising for the moment because two days ago…we received about six inches of new rain overnight.  Statistically, that was the most rain ever recorded on an April day in Kentucky’s history and the fourth biggest rainfall total for a day during any month in our state’s experience. We had a lot of localized flooding from that storm and coupled with the immense fire at the General Electric Appliance Park, put the national spotlight on Louisville…twice in one day.  The GE fire and subsequent thick, nasty smoke with its fumes and particulate matter from incinerated plastic rose into the clouds and was a nearly apocalyptic vision.  Many people mistook the immense column of smoke for a tornado and the weather services were peppered with false alarms.  All this goes into saying that environmentally, it’s been a rough few weeks around here.  Spring while lovely with the returning sunshine and greenery, also has this dark side which it is not afraid to show from time to time.

I can be sure to find novelties among all this brown materiality.  Can’t say I have ever come across a Three Stooges ball before and there they were, Larry, Curley, and Moe looking up at me!  There were other treasures as well.  Here’s a snapshot of a toy I found that I dropped into the old collecting bag.

Discovered resting upon the wood and bark chips was this plastic fragment from a vintage toy.  It is missing it’s backside.  I have found similar old toys before and now suspect the river has cut into a landfill and liberated these older toys from the ground.

Came across this large carp which was one of three dead animals I found.  Also located the remains of a Black Vulture and a Canvasback Duck that looked to be what was left from a bird of prey’s meal.  Every now and then, you discern a sickly sweet smell emanating from the driftwood and you know some other unfortunate life form is buried under the debris.

This is the centerpiece of my former outdoor studio area where I had cached many of the materials I found in the park.  All the Styrofoam pieces I had salvaged for artworks have washed away, but there is a fresh batch for the picking.  This large, painted, metal disc is what I’ve been calling the “UFO” which is short for Unknown Floating Object.  It washed into the park several years a go and subsequent floods have yet to move it out.  It is now tilted and has all this driftwood around it.  Formerly, it was laying flat on the ground and made a nice surface to work on.  My time is limited today and I want to make something from all this “abundance” out here.  I select a few large chunks of Styrofoam and begin constructing a figure.

Some of the large pieces of Styrofoam I want to work with are water-logged and too heavy to move.  I will wait a few weeks and see if the sun dries them out more?  I select two pieces for what will be a large, absurd figure and get to work.  I pick up junk around my feet and created this large head.  I move a really large polystyrene block into place atop the driftwood pile next to a river buoy that says “Idle Zone” on it.  For the next couple of hours, I will be anything but idle.

While I was constructing this figure, I decided to call it “March Madness”.  According to the Walls Street Journal and ESPN, the Louisville area is the epicenter of interest in the college basketball game and its season ending national championship tournament.  Our region usually has several teams competing for top honors.  On the day I made this figure, the University of Louisville Cardinals were knocked out of contention.  I attached an old basketball to the end of a very long arm.  The slight breeze blowing at the time caused the figure’s arms and head to sway and vibrate in place.

I look forward to spending a bit more time out here…weather permitting.  If everything remains in place, there is a chance to make several large figures this season.  I will be curious to see if this figure is still standing or whether park visitors or the elements have toppled it?  I just received a notification from WordPress that I have just reached my sixth anniversary of blogging with them!  For today, I will end with a picture of a tree that recently was completely underwater.  You can tell how high the water rose from the junk caught among the branches.  Happy Easter everybody!