Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Although I could have gone on making this panel richer and richer, at a certain point, you need to call this piece finished.  Solid Light, Inc., the Louisville-based exhibit design team responsible for the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center’s renovation wanted to have everything in place by October.  Officially, the center won’t open to the public until January 2016, however, the center wants to do a series of trial runs to see how well the new exhibits will work with school groups under the center’s educational staff.  I worked pretty feverishly at my friend Tom’s large studio to get this panel realized before needing to turn it over to the designers.  Also compelling me was the need to undertake a personal trip to Florida with my family to visit my ailing mother.  Mom is getting better, but it’s just not life anymore if there aren’t many balls being juggled in the air simultaneously!  I had more than enough found objects and river materials to get the job done.  If anything, I may have had too many things to choose from!  For this post, I thought I would share images of the panel in progress as well as some detail shots of its surface.  The fun of this piece is looking up close to see the variety of objects both natural and artificial that have been fixed into place.

I tried several arrangements before settling on something that I thought would work.  Central in all my compositions was the use of an old marine cable and the fragment from the side of a discarded set of wooden steps.  The design team wanted a look that seemed to suggest that the objects and materials I was going to use had just washed up upon this place.  Having something that appeared casual and spontaneous, but also composed was a big challenge.  My own formalist tendencies wanted to work within a tighter composition, but I relaxed that by doing several dry run layouts before I nailed or glued anything in place.  Of course, there is fantasy operating in the finished panel too because no where at the Falls of the Ohio have I ever encountered this much concentrated stuff in such a small area.

Another step that I realized was prudent before attaching stuff was painting my wood panel.  I went for a mottled brown and gray background that resembled mulch and dried leaves.  I think I did a good job of covering the surface and only in places can you see through to the wood panel below.

I was really proud of myself!  I only dipped my painting brush into my coffee once!  Once the surface was dry, I began by attaching the nylon cable around the panel first.  I used a borrowed nail gun hooked up to an air compressor to do this.  In fact, where possible, I used the nail gun as much as I could.  I also used screws and a variety of adhesives (depending upon the material being glued) to attach items to the board.  Working with polystyrene and various plastics can be tricky because certain compounds will eat and dissolve these materials.

I worried that my barge cable might make the panel look too much like the decor you see in seafood restaurants, but I think I managed to barely escape that impression.  After the cable, I attached the wooden steps and glued the larger pieces of Styrofoam into place.  I had other limitations that I haven’t mentioned yet, but this is as good a place as any to say what those were.  First, nothing could project off of the surface any higher than 3.5 to 3.75 inches!  The panel would need to be able to slide into a case that is 4 inches deep.  Another concern was keeping a clean 3/4″ open wood margin along the entire outer edge of the panel.  This would assist in sliding the panel into its case.  Apparently, after the above shot, I didn’t take any more in process photos because I was too busy making the thing!  Here’s a pretty close to finished view of the panel.  I worked on this panel horizontally, but did tip it up to see it as others will see it and to find out if anything would fall off the surface?  Fortunately, everything pretty much stayed in place.

There is a whole list of things you can find on this panel.  On the base level, it is a good mix of the driftwood, polystyrene, glass, coal, aluminum, and other plastics found in the Ohio River.  Here are a few details to give you a better look.

Some of the items on the panel like the coyote skull …I’ve had for many years while other pieces like the plastic Native American came to light a month a go.  I had to include at least one doll in this assemblage because outside of toy balls…dolls are the most frequently found toy I come across at the Falls of the Ohio.  I sprinkled in enough polished coal, walnuts, and mussel shells to keep it lively.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the finished displays sometime soon.  I’m sure this panel will look completely different in its case and in the context of the other exhibits.  Looking forward to getting back outside to the river sometime soon.  I still have a trip to Richmond, KY on the schedule to pick up my art that I have on display there .  For now, I will content myself with this picture taken in the park several weeks a go.  Thanks for dropping by!

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