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Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Clarksville, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, Ohio River flooding, Photograpy, tagged Art, art made from plastic, artist at exit 0, found materials, Fred Flintstone baby bottle, material culture, nature, photography, plastic butterfly, plastic containers, plastic rainbow, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific artworks on February 8, 2016| 4 Comments »

Beyond the Woodland Loop Trail in the western section of the Falls of the Ohio is where today’s river adventure finds me. It has been many months since I last visited this side of the park. I have been looking forward to walking on the driftwood that accumulates on this riverbank. As always, I’ve got my trusty walking stick and collecting bag with me. It’s time to find what there is to find and make something from that. Right away, I found this plastic butterfly or moth (fireworks perhaps?) and enjoyed taking several images of it juxtaposed with the riverbank landscape. Just a quick look around and I can see lots of plastic and polystyrene to potentially use. I will also keep my eyes open for a good site to do one of my plastic arrangements that I have been having fun with of late.

I was fairly confident that I would find as much plastic debris on this shoreline as I had found in the eastern section of the park. That would prove to be correct and I brought an extra collecting bag along to help with the gathering process. I have been enjoying organizing the colorful plastic bottles and containers that I find into mostly chromatic and rainbow-inspired arrangements. The driftwood and sand out here is unified in coloring presenting a monochromatic landscape where bright, colorful plastic notes sing out among all these lost trees. You soon realize as you sort out the plastic from the driftwood, how much of our material culture is intermixed into everything else.

After walking the high water line for a couple of hours, I dumped all the colorful plastic I had collected onto the sand. I thought I had picked a good location that was between the water and the riverbank. I picked up a nice plastic milk crate along the way to assist with the gathering. I notice that I usually pick up intact items preferring them over plastic bits and pieces…although, I will use fragments too especially if they are a hard to come by color. Most all of the plastic bottles and containers I find have had their labels washed off by the river. I put a lot of trust in the cleaning power of millions of gallons of water.

Using the patterns and intervals of driftwood that the river had previously laid down here as a supporting structure where today’s found plastic is sorted by color and staged. Here is where you might find out that you picked up more green bottles than yellow or that purple was that day’s hard to find color.

Here’s a view looking eastward with a bit of the skyline of Louisville suggested through the distant trees. From my experience, fewer people visit this section of the park and many who do often prove to be residents of Clarksville which is just over the flood wall. Let’s show a few more images of how this piece rounded into shape.

I like the big wooden beam lying parallel to the plastic. Not all the driftwood out here is of the wild variety. I find lumber cut-offs and planed planks of all kinds and have used them in my art as well. These shots were taken on a beautiful end of the month day where we had a respite from the cold and grayness.

There was one large blue plastic drum that was buried in the sand and had water in it as well. I didn’t like how it intruded into these pictures and so tried to take it away. Well, it was much too heavy for one person to life out of the sand. Fortunately, among the few people I did see on this day were old river rat friends who gave me a hand with this. The blue drum nearly folded in half takes its position at the end of the line.

I hung around and admired all the bright colors as they revealed themselves in a setting sun. I think this is the most complex plastic assemblage (as far as variety and number of individual pieces used goes) that I have made thus far. I will go ahead and tell you that this work no longer exists except as digital images. Over the past week, we had strong rain storms that went through the Ohio Valley resulting in a high river. Although the rains didn’t affect us directly, all the water that was dropped into the watershed caused it to inundate many of the familiar places on the riverbank that I like to work. The river has been unpredictable of late and I have had at least three new projects washed away. As I walked home, I did find an interesting bottle that I walked over before. I’m fairly sure this is Fred Flintstone based on the diamond pattern on his “garment”. A quick inquiry over the internet yielded some results. This find was originally part of a four plastic baby bottle set that featured Fred, Barney, and their kids Pebbles and BamBam. This vintage baby product was more than likely manufactured between 1977 and 1984! I wonder if its possible for my find to be that old? Judging from the wear and tear and severe fading…that’s a distinct possibility. Happy with my new find…I dropped it into my collecting bag. I think it is the unusual items I come across that make this such a fun way to spend time at the river. With the sun going down, the temperatures are getting cooler…time to go home. Until next time from an ever-changing Falls of the Ohio.

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Two Arrangements in Plastic

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, lost sandals, material culture, nature photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art and the environment, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, colorful plastic containers, Ekoart, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, material culture, nature, photography, plastic, plastic art, recycled materials, repurposed art, sense of place on January 24, 2016| 6 Comments »

Over the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend I was able to make it out to the Falls of the Ohio State Park on a couple of occasions. It helped that this was a three-day weekend. I was curious to see what was lying around the riverbank after our first dusting of snow had blown away. As I was expecting, I found a lot of plastic bottles and containers, Styrofoam, and plenty of driftwood. I first inspect an area for the larger pattern left by the river. The stuff that floats most readily often defines the high water mark on the riverbank.

This is a typical detail of stuff that builds up on a driftwood mound. There are many automotive and boating references particularly plastic bottles that held various petroleum products. There is also a wealth of plastic beverage bottles to illustrate the carelessness of some folks recreating on the river. I have a mental image of this stuff eventually flowing downriver, into the Mississippi River, and out into the wider world through the Gulf of Mexico. What I see at the Falls of the Ohio is only what I see. I know there is a glacier of plastic and junk that by passes me and will show up somewhere downstream. With each succeeding flood, I keep thinking that all the stuff that had been accumulating upriver has already been washed into the watershed. That, however, doesn’t seem to be the case and the amount of “fresh trash” that shows up in the park seems not to have a limit.

Both days that I worked at the river were very cold ones. The piece I made using found yellow and green plastic was the coldest with temps hovering around 10 degrees and it was colder than that with the wind. After picking up what caught my eye, I retreated to my little studio area near the U.F.O. (Unidentified Floating Object) that is this welded and painted steel platform that washed into this area over five years ago.

I saw a possibility in the space under the UFO that was formed when the river shifted the driftwood mound. I cleared the space a little bit and found a plank and stump in which to set up what I would eventually call “Arrangement in Yellow and Green Plastic”. All the bottles and other colorful plastic items were picked up in the immediate area. The wind was really biting and so I sought shelter by the treeline. It took a little patience to make this piece because the wind kept blowing away the lighter items. Eventually, I fit everything together and held it in place by strategically using found bottles that still had weight to them because mud or sand had become their new contents.

My photos of this piece vary from one another because elements kept blowing off. I was struck that I could make a colorful gradation using primarily yellow and green plastic found just in the willow habitat. I favor doing these color pieces because they also reference the electromagnetic spectrum and without light, those ancient plants that lived and succeeded millions of years ago would not eventually become the crude substance from which these bottles were fabricated. It’s interesting to me to think that much of the energy we derive from fossil fuels is captured starlight from an ancient time. We owe it to the plants to be able to stabilize this energy through photosynthesis and fix it into their very tissues.

Eventually, the cold started to get to me and I was fast losing what little light was present on this day. I might have moved the blue plastic drum out of the bottom picture, but it was frozen into the ground and full of sand and mud and would have been a challenge to lift. After awhile, I began to like it for the additional color it lent this scene. One thing concentrating so much color in one area does is call into attention the brown drabness that subsumes everything else.

I returned to the river two days later. It was still very cold, however, a big improvement over the previous day. The sun was shining and the wind was absent. Having completed and photographed one colorful plastic arrangement, I set about creating a new one in a different palette of colors. Searching the area I decided to work at…I could see plenty of red and blue plastic items spread out among the driftwood. It took me an hour or so to pull these bottles and objects together. I wished that I might have come across a few more violet or purple items, but I guess these are colors that are used less than straight up red or blue? I know that in terms of lightfastness, red and purple plastic fades away quicker than many other colors.

Using a bit of the geometry I was feeling from the willow trees and the way the sunlight was hitting their trunks…I decided to site “Arrangement in Red and Blue Plastic” on the sand. There’s a distant view of the Ohio River through this informal avenue of trees. Watching how the shadows of the tree trunks were being cast upon the sand was an important element in the overall composition of this piece.

Among the items comprising this work are a blue plastic child’s putter golf club, the cap to a plastic cane that held Christmas candy and several flip-flops of the right color. When I finished this piece, I left it in place as I did the other arrangement. Perhaps the next time I return to this area, I may combine the two groups of plastic? I could create another grand rainbow with the addition of finding more orange in particular. I probably would throw in some black and white plastic items since they are here in quantity as well. I felt relatively good about this weekend’s projects and some of the images that resulted. When I am occupied with a project, I really don’t feel the elements in the same way. I suppose there is a bit of mind over matter happening too. When I do feel the cold, however, is when I decide to turn for home and come across a frozen sight like these containers locked in ice! Stay warm and safe everybody…from the Falls of the Ohio.

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First Snow of 2016

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, birds and birding, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, photography, plastic, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, fake snowman, Falls of the Ohio, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, found materials, material culture, nature, photography, plastic bottles, plastic dinosaur, plastic duck decoy, sense of place, site specific art, Styrofoam, willow tree, winter on January 16, 2016| 5 Comments »

The new year is off to an auspicious start. First we had a bit of minor flooding that rearranged the park and the new and improved Interpretive Center has successfully opened. I was curious to see what the river had left behind and make my first foray upon the riverbank and fossil beds. On the day I had prepared to venture forth, well, it snowed the night before and covered many areas with a light dusting of what looks like confectioner’s sugar upon the landscape.

I come prepared…mostly. Even covered up, I could feel the wind and the cold which was blowing hard enough that it made my eyes water. Reaching into my trusty Dutch field jacket, I pull out my vintage “Wind-Dodger” goggles and put them on. I came across these goggles still new in their 1950’s box at a favorite junk store that is now gone. They were manufactured by the Kono Manufacturing Co., of Woodside, N.Y. I think the graphics on the side of the box sold me as to their value. Printed in red ink it read:

“The scientific construction of the Wind-Dodger fits the natural contours of the features-providing maximum exclusion of wind and rain and all foreign particles in the air. The elastic tape holds the Wind-Dodger firmly in place under every condition of work and play in all kinds of weather.” I am a big believer in the value of science.

Further more, printed on the side of the box, was added they were suitable “For Work” and “For Play” and would be useful to railroad men, farmers, mechanics, construction workers, as they engage in sailing, hunting, fishing, flying, skiing, and driving. It was a natural leap for me to assume that they would also be perfect for a river junk artist like yours truly. One thing that the Kono Manufacturing Co. forgot to say is that they also steam up inside the goggles and require frequent drying. Still, they prove to be better than nothing.

The scarf I’m wearing is the oldest piece of clothing I own. It was given to me by a friend and artistic mentor back in the mid 1970’s and somehow I have held on to it over the years. I realize that with a lot of the clothing I own…I can be ridiculously sentimental.

The biting wind and cold are a concern, but so is the footing. The snow covers up a multitude of sins that cannot be seen. It is still slippery out here and in places the mud hasn’t completely frozen. Much of what I think I can find out here will remain hidden until warmer weather returns. But, I’m out here anyway and so I make a quick walk around some familiar places and record what I can with my camera phone.

I discover that a favorite willow tree is now almost completely bent over and resting on the ground. A huge log that the river deposited on top of this tree has shattered one of its main branches. I suspect that it is not long for the world. Spring flooding will repeat this battering process and I assume the tree’s prognosis is not good. Of course, there are other things that present themselves in this frigid landscape that rode in with the high waters.

My eye is immediately drawn to this purple plastic “dragon” rocking toy. I find another giant reptile reference on the rocks nearest the river and here it is.

This plastic sauropod arrived in a fresh water wave. I believe this species was formerly called “Brontosaurus”, but has been renamed “Apatosaurus” since it was discovered that an earlier scientific find gave the new name priority over the older, more familiar name. I briefly allow myself to soak in the irony of finding an object made from ancient petroleum that washed up on these even older fossil beds that references this prehistoric animal. Heady stuff indeed! Nearby, was my next find that continued this line of thinking.

And, what happened to some of the dinosaurs? It is believed that they evolved into birds. Right on cue, I find this plastic duck decoy! It represents the male Northern Shoveler, (Anas clypeata). I have found many other plastic duck decoys out here, but this is the first for this pretty species. The winter river at the Falls of the Ohio is a good place to see different duck species. In fact, winter may be the only time of year to see many of them. The river is steaming because the actual water temperature is warmer that the surrounding air, but the wind is a little fiercer too. I decide to keep walking and soon come across an old project I did from last year.

I created this site specific piece using green plastic bottles after last year’s flooding. It was sited high upon a big mound of driftwood that was too big for this recent minor flooding to affect much. Originally, I had filled the underside of what I think is the remains of a boat dock with the green bottles. Time has shifted the bottles to the bottom of the wood form.

While the snow is beautiful and transforming as these snow-covered vines can attest to….it is also getting ridiculously cold! The fingers on my right hand hurt and sting from the cold because I have to take my glove off to operate my camera. Soon images of a hot cup of coffee began to intrude upon my winter reverie. It’s time to go home, but there was yet one more very pleasant surprise waiting in store for me.

As I was heading back to the parking lot…I came across an old friend whom I was happy to see! We first met at the Falls on an absurdly warm day in December when the temperatures were in the low 70 degree range! I had photographed him as he was decorating river trees in advance of the holiday season. My old Styro-Snowman buddy was just beaming! At last, he was in his element and I’m so happy that his patience was rewarded. Not wanting to intrude too much in his special moment, I bid farewell and took this parting shot as I left the river. Stay warm everybody…from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Finding the Spirit of the Season

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Clarksville, creativity, Found objects, material culture, Photograpy, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, children's story, decorating a Christmas tree, Ekostory, Falls of the Ohio State Park, found materials, material culture, nature, nature story, Snowman, spirit of a place, Spirit of the Season, star power, Styrofoam on December 25, 2015| 7 Comments »

Here’s a little story set at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana that will help carry us into the new year. This tale is from a few weeks back, but I have been saving it. I have, however, been using many of the images I created on this day for use with my Christmas cards. Making ornaments, setting up holiday lights, and coming up with a new batch of cards to give away are my ways of getting into the spirit of the season. I also enjoy attempting to put into words something about my Falls experiences and the following is this year’s gift from the river. Today, we are in the western section of the park. I know of four special trees with exposed roots (three sycamores and one cottonwood) that hang out together and have survived a very tough year and were due a visit from me. With the daylight fading, this would be a good place to watch the sun set as the Ohio River turns left on its journey westward.

Getting into the right spirit of the season can be difficult for some folks. Especially, when the weather is abnormally warm and you were hoping for snow to get winter kick started in the right direction. The Falls of the Ohio, like much of the eastern portion of our country, is currently in the grips of El Nino. Our area has set several all-time records for heat for this time of year. What a contrast from last year’s polar vortex! As luck would have it, the Styro-Snowman happened to be around when I was visiting the river. I stuck around to see what would happen next.

Although this snowman wore a fixed expression, his odd movements communicated befuddlement? Something was missing or just not right. I could see him looking around for something…perhaps a reminder of the season, but nothing appeared obvious? After roaming the fossil cliffs for several minutes he stopped and looked towards the sky. That’s when an amazing thing happened and if I didn’t have these pictures to prove it…I am sure you would not believe me. As the sun, our star, was setting…another star much smaller and shaped like a snowflake descended from the sky. I wondered if my friend here had willed it to him or did the star appear spontaneously? As the star drifted by the Styro-being reached up and gently brought the star down to earth. I could sense a feeling of joy coming over the snowman.

Along with the snowflake star…a small white sack appeared on the ground. Inside the sack were five, slightly beat up plastic tree ornaments like the kind you can sometimes find at the Falls after the flooding has subsided. The snowman looked into the sack a pulled out a roughed up, but still functional, deep red ornament. His expression widened and I almost felt like I was reading his mind. The snowman walked over to one of the four trees with the great roots and began decorating its branches.

The first tree the snowman embellished had a more open arrangement with ornaments hung on several branches. For whatever reason, the snowman didn’t find this to be satisfactory and he took his five ornaments off and moved to another nearby tree.

On a low hanging limb of another rugged sycamore, the snowman hung up his ornaments with care. He saved his bright red bauble for last and placed it upon the branch which was accomplished precariously by standing on a large tree root. The snowman looked content when he was finished and paused a moment or two to soak up his handiwork.

Oddly, the snowman had hung up his ornaments in a straight line that ascended the tree branch. Wordlessly, I could tell that he was moved by this alignment, but why? The tree, after all, could have been decorated any number of ways. Something about this configuration made me think of celestial models and how we rank planets based by size or their proximity to the sun. The now extraordinary branch seemingly had this cosmic link going for it. The snowman stood behind his decorations and peered up the line which seemed to be sighted to a particular spot in the night sky that seemed a little darker than the surrounding space.

Without saying a single word, the Styro-Snowman elevated the star that had come to him from high above. He had borrowed some of its magic and now it was his time to pass it on. It floated off until it reached that now dark spot in the firmament that it normally occupied. A bright flash of light signaled that the snow star was back in position. It is said that all life contains a little star power within it and I think I just witnessed that in action. With his spirit lifted, the snowman looked over his shoulders at me and with his fixed acorn smile disappeared into the river.

I dedicate this little story to all who seek some personal connection to the spirit of the season or who simply are following magic stars of their own. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Season’s Greetings from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, lost and found, material culture, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged aluminum, Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, broken flamingo, coal, coyote skull, driftwood, exhibit display, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel, Falls of the Ohio State Park, found objects, glass, lost and found, material culture, plastic, sense of place, Solid Light Inc. on October 18, 2015| 6 Comments »

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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It’s September and Current Projects

Posted in Art, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, Installation, material culture, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, unusual collection, tagged Art, art exhibition, artist at exit 0, assemblage, driftwood, Eastern Kentucky University art department, Falls of the Ohio, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, found materials, found objects, Giles Gallery, lost and found, material culture on September 19, 2015| 10 Comments »

Although this is my first post of the month…my heart has not been far from the river or the odd kind of art that I make from the found remains of our material culture. A few months back, I accepted the generous offer from Esther Randall, who is the Gallery Director of the Giles Galleries at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond to show in their upstairs gallery. The bottom gallery will hold the colorful welded sculptures of Walter Early and his show will run concurrently with mine. I do like the postcard Esther created. She found two works by two very different artists that share the word “star” in their titles. Our exhibitions will open during the upcoming week and if you happen to be in the area. Please do stop by and check out our art shows. Richmond is about 22 miles past Lexington, KY or about an hour and 45 minute drive from Louisville. Here is the reverse of the card that gives other particulars about the opening reception and run of the show.

As you can see, my show is called “Albertus Gorman: Artist from Exit 0”. For all the work I’ve done at the river, I still identify very much with the “Exit 0” sense for place and the slightly existential “feel” that it implies to me. So much of my river art has been located in that interstitial area between the natural and artificial, between water and solid land, and between my own despair for the continued environmental degradation I experience in the park and the hope and optimism I want to feel as a human being rooted in the physical world. So what am I going to present in this newest exhibition?

Like many artists, I have the world’s greatest collection of my own artwork…or at least the pieces I’ve bothered to save from the river. Like many artists, I tend to keep moving forward making new stuff which means that many pieces exist that may have been shown only once or not at all. Of course, that is a big shame because different contexts bring out different qualities in the individual works and potential relationships that exist with the other pieces on exhibit.

Here are a few more artworks I have “staged” prior to loading them in a cargo van. I have many figurative Styrofoam sculptures that I have never shown in exhibition contexts. In the above image, you can see my latest piece which continues the work I have been doing with found plastic containers. I built a wall-mounted shelf from river-gifted wood and arranged the colorful plastic containers that I have also scavenged off the riverbank. The individual bottles have Velcro on their bottoms to help secure them onto their narrow shelf. A length of twine is there to help keep the bottles together while in transport.

All of these Styro-sculptures have stories associated with them and I remember them like old friends! This blog is their genealogical source recording their creation, their “lives” as art objects, and in some cases…even their demise.

I have five new works that were created specifically for this show. Three of them are larger photo enlargements I have had made that show works I created in the contexts of their river environments. For now, I will let Esther work her magic and I will post other images from the completed installation. I also have one other project going on that I have remained mum about so far. As you might remember, the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center has been closed for renovation as they upgrade their displays? Well, they have contracted with me to create an assemblage on a roughly 8 foot by 4 foot wooden panel showing some of the river junk I have collected within the park. I am really excited by this since this panel will be a part of their new presentation and will be the last panel seen as you exit the new displays. Thousands of people (many school tours) will get a chance to see this piece which will document many of the things that you can unfortunately find in the Ohio River. This panel is due soon and I have a lot of work left to do on it. Once completed, it will slide into a vertical case with a sheet of plexiglas with some text elements on it to help explain, cover, and protect it. It has already gone through several permutations, but for the moment, I will show just a few images taken of it in progress. Here are images from Phase 1.

As you can tell, this can go in a lot of different directions because of the wealth of materials available. All the stuff going onto this panel will have been collected within the Falls of the Ohio State Park. There is no need to go anywhere else! I want it to be as authentic as possible in so far as representing the kinds of stuff you can find floating in the Ohio River. Since these images were made, Solidlight (the Louisville-based company creating the new Interpretive Center displays) has suggested some changes. They want to see more driftwood used as a unifying element which should be easy enough to do. I hope, however, that they will appreciate that people will be just as interested in the variety of crap I’ve collected as well and not settle for a cross-section of materials that can be found at the water’s edge. To see that, a visitor simply needs to go down to the river to experience that already in place. My good friend, sculptor Tom Butsch is letting me use his studio to construct this. My own space at home is simply not large enough to accommodate this. A couple more pictures before ending.

A river found barge cable and section from a set of stairs are big individual elements going onto this panel. I keep playing around with different compositions. The trick for me is in keeping it more informal. My impulse as an artist is to want to order this in some more formal way. I will let you know how all this turns out. I have an early October deadline, so this panel will be my focus for the next few weeks. Until then…and from the banks of the Ohio River…see you next time.

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Rare Sandpiper at the Falls of the Ohio

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, birding, creativity, environmental art, found materials, Found objects, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, photography, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged accidental bird, Art, artist at exit 0, birds, Devonian fossil beds, Falls of the Ohio State Park, found art, material culture, Monarch butterfly, nature, photography, rare sandpiper, sense of place, site specific artwork, Styrofoam, the natural and the artificial on August 25, 2015| 4 Comments »

Once a year, usually in mid to late summer, the dam is closed and the water retreats off of and exposes the ancient Devonian fossil beds. It is an other worldly landscape of blonde-colored rocks that preserves in limestone the proof that life existed over 400 million years ago. This exact place during that time too ancient to imagine was in the latitude of the present day Bahama Islands. Then it is was a marine reef supporting early salt water animals, most especially a large variety of corals. Today, this is a fresh water environment defined by the Ohio River. My goal is to cross over to the Kentucky side (where the majority of the fossil beds are located) by wading through the shallower areas near the tainter gates. Unfortunately, and unforseen by me, all the recent high water has made the riverbank a slippery muddy mess and the current that is allowed to flow through a channel by the dam is still too strong to wade through. I got almost half way across and found the footing treacherous. I didn’t fear for my personal safety, but I didn’t want to risk dunking my camera and phone in the water. Thwarted today, I will need to make better provisions for that the next time I attempt this.

So, I did the next best thing which was to explore the riverbank and nearby Willow Habitat. The resident colony of Black Vultures was hanging out under what shade some of these willow trees could provide. The bird in the above image is a sentry maintaining its post outside of where the main group of birds were resting under the nearby trees. The vulture flock doesn’t seem as large as it has been in the recent past. Perhaps the prolonged conditions of having a high river forced some of these large birds of prey to seek greener pastures? The vultures would allow me to only get so close before jumping into the air in search of thermals to lift them even higher. I continued my modified trip by walking towards the fossil cliffs below the Interpretive Center.

It was a very hot day and in places you would come across areas that were once very wet and had dried revealing a wonderful network of cracks.

I’m proud of myself. In addition to wearing a cap…I made sure to bring along plenty of drinking water on this very hot and humid day. Here my bottle is wrapped in a heavy mil plastic bagel bag. I used this to keep the other items in my pack dry just in case this bottle leaked. I continued my hike to the fossil cliffs when I could see something snow-white in color moving along the ground. At first I thought this was a piece of paper disturbed by the breeze, but soon noticed it was moving in bird-like fashion. I continued approaching very carefully yet deliberately and had my cameras at the ready. Here is my first image of what would soon be many.

Switching over to higher magnification, I could see my new bird was a species I had never encountered out here before. In the comfort of my own home I was able to identify this little guy as the Yellow-collared Sandpiper (Caladris fascinati). This is a tiny shorebird more at home in the Pacific Northwest and has rarely been recorded east of the Mississippi River. This is the first recorded instance of this bird at the Falls of the Ohio State Park. So, what was it doing here so far away from home?

It is not unusual for this park to record rarities during the migration seasons in early spring and autumn. To see this bird here outside the normal times shorebirds would be migrating through our area makes me think this bird is here by accident. Perhaps one of the monster storms we have experienced this year blew this little one way off course? Looking at my reference guides, I identified this as being a juvenile of the species. You can tell that by the pink bill. Once fully mature, the bill turns dark, nearly black in color. I have recorded other juvenile shorebirds migrating through the park on other Falls of the Ohio adventures. In particular, I remember seeing juvenile Golden Plovers and once…even saw a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher. What makes these sightings all the more incredible for me is knowing that a few short weeks ago…these birds were beginning life as eggs in shallow nests located in the high Arctic tundra. Normally, the Yellow-collared Sandpiper migrates down the Pacific coastline of the United States, crosses into Mexico, and winters in Central America. This is a journey of several thousand miles.

I observed this bird for about a half hour or so. I watched it feeding around the margins of small pools of water that had puddled on the fossil beds. It used its pink bill to probe the soft mud in search of the tiny invertebrates that make up the bulk of its diet. The bird seemed not to be concerned about me and I took many photographs to document its presence in the park.

The mouse-like bird moved like a wind-up toy on the fossil rocks. When it moved, its tiny legs seemed to be going as quickly as they could. The sandpiper had a curiosity for the world and checked out every clump of vegetation and crack upon the limestone surface as potential sources for food. Perhaps it was the hawk that flew high over our heads casting a fast shadow upon these ancient reefs that scared it away or perhaps it just grew tired of my company…regardless, the Yellow-collared Sandpiper flew away in a blur of brown wings. I thought I could detect a high “peep” call note as it went skyward. Heading back to my vehicle, I had one more pleasant surprise in store for me. While this is not on par for rarity, seeing the beginning of the Monarch butterfly migration going through our small piece of the planet is still an awesome occasion. Like the Yellow-collared Sandpiper, the Monarch butterfly has a very impressive migration of its own as it moves from Canada to Mexico and back again. On my way home, I said a little prayer asking for the continued safety of all the small things moving through the world. I guess that’s it for this time at the Falls of the Ohio.

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Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Posted in Absurd, animals, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, lost sandals, material culture, nature photography, photography, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, Site specific art, tagged Art, art and the environment, artificial rainbow, artist at exit 0, Big Eyed Click Beetle, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, lost and found, nature, photography, plastic containers, rainbow colors, sense of place, tree stump, willow trees on June 18, 2015| 11 Comments »

Life in a bucket. I’ve seen this before and written about it in an older blog post. Regardless, whenever I encounter something like this I remain amazed at life’s ability to thrive in less than optimum circumstances. A little river mud in an old broken plastic bucket gets colonized by a few windblown grass seeds, add a little rainfall and sunshine and life does the rest. Well, some life can do this and some can’t. The future will be determined by the life that can adapt and be resilient in the face of adversity. Walking on the fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio I wonder about our chances for success living on a planet that we have diminished to suit our own ends. I have no doubt that whatever the future holds, life will find a way. Whether or not that includes us remains to be seen.

On that jolly note I introduce my latest two projects! I got up fairly early in the morning and got a head start on the heat. By the early afternoon, I was whipped, exhausted, and wet from the humidity trapped in the local vegetation. Summer is officially upon us. It’s interesting how many conversations I’ve had this year with people similar in age to me who have remarked that as the years pass by their tolerance for the heat and humidity decreases. This was one of those days I could commiserate with them! As I was walking along the Falls landscape, I noticed an area that seemed to have a good supply of plastic containers and decided on the spot to do another petroleum rainbow piece. This is how I started out, literally beating the bushes for containers of different sizes, colors, and shapes. The material lying on the driftwood was easy to access, but in other places the vines were beginning to cover and camouflage what was under their urgent greenness.

I started out collecting various plastic jugs that originally held contents of one gallon or greater…hence “big jug”. I soon expanded that as the need for particular shades of colors became a priority. I would have liked to use more “orange”, but couldn’t find enough plastic containers in this area that day that were that color. Still, I managed a small sliver of “orange” to mark the transition from “red” to “yellow”.

“Big Jug Rainbow” is situated under a stressed willow tree that is bent over from the weight of lots of driftwood that was deposited in its canopy by flood waters. A nice verdant cave was formed and it felt like a good framing element for this piece. Here is what it looked like from the other side of the tree.

The willow trees in this habitat are twisted up and have lots of character. They remind me of the forms you find in bonsai trees, except their size is obviously much larger. In a past post, I’ve mentioned how this area’s beavers like to prune off small branches and eat the bark. This helps shape the trees. This year, I can see in dramatic fashion another element that contributes to the trees’ overall forms. The weight of the deposited wood bends the branches down and the willow continues to grow under this burden. The driftwood will remain in the tree until the river rises or the wind knocks the deposited logs down.

Bleaching, exposed driftwood atop a willow tree with my “Big Jug Rainbow” under its influence. Happy with this piece, I collected my bag and walking stick and headed further under the trees seeking shade and relief from the sun. Along the way, I was delighted to run into one of my favorite insects found at the Falls of the Ohio.

This is the Eastern Eyed Click Beetle or Big Eyed Click Beetle, (Alaus oculatus). This is one of the larger beetles you will find in our area and this is the largest of our click beetles. The biggest specimens are nearly two inches long or roughly 45mm in length. They have this wonderful, cryptic bird-dropping coloring. The eyespots on the pronatum or thorax are dramatic and large. The females lay their eggs in or near rotting wood (in abundance here) and I’m sure to come across these slow flyers at least a couple of times per season. Last year, I was startled when one landed on the back of my head and got tangled in my hair. It gave me a momentary fright to have some then unknown large insect crawling on my head. Fortunately, they don’t bite. The larvae on the other hand will eat other insects they encounter.

As has been my recent custom, as I walk along I collect any lost flip-flops that I find. At day’s end, I find a place to make something with the day’s finds. I came across this table-like tree stump that seemed like an invitation to do something with. I emptied the contents of my collecting bag and created “Stump Flower”.

The circular form in the center I believe is a sand toy? I found it laying nearby and thought it helped suggest a flower head. I think as I return to many of the places where I’ve made these flip-flop projects…I will re-gather them and perhaps recycle them into a more complex form. At day’s end, the walk back to my vehicle took a lot of effort. I did go by my “Big Jug Rainbow” piece and took one last image of it from some distance. You can barely see it through all the leafage, but it is there in all its artificial glory. That bottle of warm water I had stashed under the car seat sure tasted good! Thanks to everybody for stopping by…until next time from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Making New Friends

Posted in art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, nature photography, photography, public art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, creativity, driftwood mound, Falls of the Ohio, materiality, meeting new friends, nature, photography, plastic bottles, polystyrene, public art, railroad bridge, sense of place, site specific art, Styrofoam on June 10, 2015| 2 Comments »

So easy to get behind on creating new posts! As it often happens out here at the Falls of the Ohio…more stuff goes on than most people care to read in a single post. This will be a relatively short, but hopefully sweet story. A few weeks a go on a lovely sunny and warm weekend morning I decided to visit the Falls and see how my green bottle piece was surviving. I had positioned it on the other side of a washed out boat dock that was peaking out of a huge pile of driftwood and debris that had washed into here a few months a go. The above photo is how it would first appear to anyone venturing onto this driftwood mound. And, this is how it would appear from the other side looking towards the parking lot and fixed wier dam.

My segregating all the green glass and plastic bottles into the exposed structure of the boat dock was holding up fairly well. I just had a little bit of straightening up to do. The fact I went back to something I had made before was somewhat unusual since I prefer moving forward by making something new. I guess this piece was holding up a little better than some of my other projects by virtue of it being somewhat hidden and few folks want to venture onto this shifting mound of materiality. You can get hurt here if you are not careful and it’s easy to have a foot go through a weak spot on the mound. This has happened to me many times, but knock on wood, I have never been injured by my carelessness. I was admiring my handiwork and whistling to the Baltimore Orioles that were in the nearby cottonwood trees when I saw two people approaching my position.

Here are a couple of pictures of my new friends in action. It’s the mother and daughter team of Marjie and Anika and they were here at the Falls collecting flat, weathered boards for a shed they were making back at their home. When they saw me they came right over to see what I was doing and they saw the bottle piece which they enjoyed. Of course, one thing led to another and we had a great conversation about conservation, recycling, and the value of being outdoors. We even discovered that we have a good friend in common in Claude Stephens who works at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest. They were once neighbors. Marjie is a very practical and inventive person and I was particularly struck by how she has been able to eliminate all the soap products from her home save one. I don’t want to mention that product by name, but you are familiar with it. It’s a dishwashing liquid that is especially good at cleaning oil soaked sea mammals and birds. Apparently, by adjusting the strength of the soap by diluting it with water you can have an all-purpose cleanser that’s good for the laundry and can be used for shampoo too! Standing on this debris mound, it would be very easy to show you examples of all the many plastic containers that are used by all the myriad kinds of soap products. Cutting them out of our waste chain would be a dream come true! I showed them images of other projects I had made and stored on my cell phone and they became inspired by some of the figurative pieces I’ve made from Styrofoam. That got this dynamic duo going and they were off to make a Styrofoam sculpture of their very own!

They are an ambitious pair and decided to use the biggest polystyrene chunks they could find on this mound. I helped them set the body upright since it was still a bit heavy with retained water. The figure soon became a robot with found toy balls for eyes and a light bulb stuck on top of its head like a cherry on a sundae! It was a bit tricky keeping one’s balance standing on the driftwood. I find it helps to stand on the bigger logs which are less likely to shift or break. After sticking on a pair of arms, Marjie and Anika left their creation in place. We said our goodbyes and they collected the boards they had chosen for their shed and went home. I stuck around a little longer and took a few more images.

It’s rare when I meet folks out here who not only “get” what I do, but want to participate too. Creativity is a human birthright and can be expressed in so many ways. I especially enjoy it when I meet people who use their creativity to benefit the planet even in the smallest way. Those individuals inspire me. I exchanged email addresses with Marjie and she later sent me pictures of the shed she built at home. As it turns out, this was not the last time I would meet mother and daughter. They came out in support of a Public Art Walk event that was produced by the organization I now work for…the Carnegie Center for Art and History in historic New Albany, Indiana. Work there has been keeping me busy, but I manage to come and visit my beloved Falls and Ohio River whenever opportunity allows. I’ve made other projects lately and look forward to sharing them with you soon. Here’s to everyone having a great summer this year!

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A Different Kind of March Madness

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, art and the environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Photograpy, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged 3 Stooges Ball, Art, art and the environment, artist at exit o, assemblage, driftwood, ecological art, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, March Madness, nature, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, sense of place, Styrofoam on April 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

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.

Large, Styrofoam head in progress, March 2015

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!

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Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

Two Arrangements in Plastic

First Snow of 2016

Finding the Spirit of the Season

Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel

It’s September and Current Projects

Rare Sandpiper at the Falls of the Ohio

Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Making New Friends

A Different Kind of March Madness

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