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Park West Petrochemical Rainbow

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, material culture, Ohio River, photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, colorful plastic, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, found objects, nature, photography, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific art on August 16, 2015| 2 Comments »

Hot, sticky, and the humidity had me sweating the moment I entered the park. Today’s outing seemed more like an extreme sport than an attempt at art making. I decided to focus my efforts in the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park. I knew the recent flooding we had experienced would more than likely deposit a lot of junk and debris along the driftwood cluttered shoreline. I was right about that, but first I had to “earn it”. To access the shoreline in this area of the park required going over, under, and around large trees that had either blown over by high winds or were undermined by the soil being washed away from the riverbank.

One thing I noticed being in this section of the park…was that all the purple loosestrife seemed to be gone. Normally, one can expect to find a whole host of butterfly and other insect species sipping nectar from the colorful flowers. On this expedition, I did not see one bloom from this admittedly invasive species. I think the Ohio River’s recent bouts of high water must have affected them? I find this somewhat unusual since I associate them with growing in very damp areas. Perhaps in their case, too much of a good thing is actually a bad thing? I will do some research to see if my hunch is true. Regardless of no purple loosestrife, there were plenty of vines to snag and trip over making the footing tricky…as if the soft mud and irregular surfaces of the driftwood weren’t enough of a challenge!

With the hot sun beating on me, I faithfully search the riverbank and collected the colorful discarded items that were first “gifted” to the river and then to me. Walking from one promising area to another…I found enough plastic junk to make my next site specific piece. Here’s another look at some of the objects that I found on this day.

The really bright and colorful plastic objects virtually scream at you when you bother to pay attention. Otherwise, it’s all just part of the material crap we create and dispose of indiscriminately. Maybe because I’m looking for this kind of thing…I see it more easily. I’ve trained my eye to spot the unnatural colors mixed among the gray and brown tones of the driftwood. I decided to set up a display in a particularly promising area between two debris fields that was also close to the river. I looked around and gathered some old milled boards and set them up on short, cut logs and before long had a table-like altar to lay my plastic treasures upon. Following are several looks at the completed work.

Here’s a view from behind the piece. You can see other bottles and junk mixed into the driftwood in the foreground. I set this piece up on an area of cracked and drying river mud.

Now a view from the front. I placed this work here to take advantage of the sunlight which was beginning to set in the late afternoon. I also wanted the verdant darkness behind all the colors to help create greater contrast. There are three tiers of boards that I used for this display. As is usual, I found less of some colors and more of others. In this instance, I could have used a few more orange plastic objects, but just one small plastic bottle was all I found this time.

In the late afternoon, all the various colors in this plastic are energized by the sun’s electromagnetic spectrum which causes this junk to glow. It’s the “golden hour” and one of my favorite times of day for its ability to infuse and unify the everyday with magic. I have stayed out on the river far longer than I first anticipated. The gnats and mosquitoes have had their way with me. Plus all my granola bars for energy have been consumed and my water ran out a couple of hours a go.

I’m fading fast and still have a long hike to make. All the obstacles that were there on the way in will also be there on the way out of the park. I took one last look back at my most recent project and decide that it is the best I can do at this particular moment. I’m calling this one, the “Park West Petrochemical Rainbow” so I can remember what section of the park I visited when I assembled this piece. I picked up my collecting bag and walking stick and made sure I wasn’t leaving something I might need behind me. The rest is one foot in front of the other. I let the fading beauty of the light distract me from my discomforts. Food, water, and a nice shower are waiting for me at the end of the line. See you later from the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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Eventually, the River Goes Back Down

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, lost and found, Louisville, Kentucky, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, coconut, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, material culture, nature, photography, plastic, plastic bottles, repurposed art, sense of place on August 9, 2015| 5 Comments »

Eventually, the water does go back down and reveals after the fact, all the newest changes that the river has made in the park. You saw part of that in my last post with the way one favorite willow tree has been shaped by this latest event. In many places in the park, you can find logs that floated here from some potentially far away places.

Just a few weeks earlier, I posted images of Asian carp jumping over this very same spot. The walls of the dam were no obstacle then. Now the dam has been “graced” with many logs that were stranded along the top. They will stay here until the next flooding event or until something else shifts the balance.

Because this is summer and we have experienced so much rain, all the vegetation is really lush. Familiar paths are overgrown and the heat and humidity seem trapped at ground level. I am completely sweaty in no time at all. I went and checked out the green bottle piece I had made many weeks a go and it is still relatively in place. I assembled it on top of a large driftwood mound that this latest bout of high water was unable to fully reach. I can tell that the mound has shifted some and all of the bottles have settled within the upturned boat dock. Now, the entire mound is covered in vines. This makes it especially tricky to walk over. I snapped a few pictures and moved to the safety of the riverbank. There are lots of areas to explore and who knows what we shall find?

Slogging through the mud and wetness along the river’s edge, I make this amazing discovery. It’s a River coconut! I wonder what the tree that produced this hairy fruit looks like? Since much of the water that reaches us here flows from the north downward, I imagine that this is one hardy tree. I guess the coconut’s shagginess is a coping mechanism for cold winters? As we walk, there are more discoveries to be made.

Further down the riverbank I encounter this object. I am holding it as I am because initially, I thought this was an extra-large toy wristwatch minus the hands and numbers. Since I have been able to examine it more closely from the leisure of my home…I am now thinking that this is a child’s pro wrestling inspired championship belt? All the glued on rhinestones must have fallen off while the river carried it away from wherever it originated from.

Walking further west…I discover the remains of a riding toy. This is a blue plastic dolphin that came to rest in the Willow Habitat. There are more plastic items to find. Next was perhaps my favorite find of the day.

This is so small, that I’m surprised I spotted it among all the other small items both natural and artificial. It’s of course a plastic doll shoe, but this one has a nice patina acquired from being in the river for a while. I still find many dolls and doll parts, but this little doll accessory is a rare find. Unfortunately, there is also plenty of other plastic in the park that isn’t so hard to find. Here’s one such example as I found it in place.

Three plastic bottles and containers rest in a pretty disgusting looking puddle. The orange color is actually something I find occurring here naturally and may be due to some red oxide that exists below the many levels of clay and sand. Of late, I have been collecting various plastic bottles and creating other site specific pieces with them. On this particular day, I made a relatively small one due to time constraints. I have often found that it is good to have some limits with this river art. Simply, there are so many things one can work with and I have added to my vocabulary of forms and materials slowly over the years.

Like some of my previous efforts, I chose a particularly promising area that seemed to have a “wealth” of plastic bottles and containers. I then set out to find colorful examples to make an assemblage with. I like contrasting the high artificiality of these bright objects with the more subdued organic efforts of Mother Nature. The high-keyed colors are often cheery. I think that even on a subconscious level, we recognize the former products that were in these bottles even without their original labels which have washed away. From our own household experiences and uses, we are reassured by the soap that will clean our clothes or the oil that keeps our engines humming and in good condition. That’s where the tension lies in these simple assemblages…we know that this is far from the case. Since we now know that these containers and the products they once held were extracted from nature at great cost. In the aftermath of use…that cost continues as the packaging is disposed of irresponsibly. This particular artwork is heavy on the black which influences things as well. I simply found more black containers on this day and used them. After a few photographs, I picked up my collecting bags and headed home exhausted from slogging through the mud, heat, and humidity. I’ll leave this post with one more view from the Indiana side of the Ohio River. On the way home, I noticed a small flock of Canada Geese gliding past the skyline of Louisville and the river seemed at peace for the moment. Catch you later from the Falls of the Ohio.

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More Fun with Plastic Jugs

Posted in art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, driftwood, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, Petroleum Rainbow, plastic containers, plastic rainbow, Rainbow, sense of place on June 28, 2015| 3 Comments »

Balancing on the spine of a water-soaked log, I crossed over to the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park. A gorgeous day with the river high from torrential hurricane remnant thunder storms the valley experienced a couple of days a go. It has been a few weeks since I was last in this section of the park. Everything is green and growing and pressing upon the life around it. This was another productive excursion to the river and I made several site specific works with the plastic I found. I’ve decided to break those posts up into several stories because many of the pictures came out well.

For this piece, I selected an area that I knew would have lots of plastic washed ashore. With the river currently high, the searchable area is constricted by the encroaching water and high-walled riverbank and by dense vegetation. When I unloaded my collecting bags and the contents of a milk crate I pressed into service…this is what I picked up. Interestingly, this collection also includes plastic palettes from rival cola companies. The rest of the best includes plastic containers for petroleum and laundry products. As you can see, most of the labels have come off of the bottles due to river immersion. I picked a place with lots of growing grape vines and set up my latest bottle piece. Here is a quick sequence showing the progress…starting with building a three-tiered structure using local wood and logs I found in place.

There are always surprises in what colors are available in a given area. In this section of the park, black, green, and purple colored plastic was harder to come by. I used five boards, three small logs, and a large log (hidden in the grape vines) to build this three layer structure to hold my found bottles. I worked on this piece and another one I will show later moving back and forth between the hot sunlight of this assemblage and the piece I was making in the cooling shade. Here are a couple more bottle details which I like to show off the color.

Everything about these containers is so highly artificial that they contrast with all the greenery around it. So much thought and effort went into the design of these bottles to make their intended contents as desirable as possible. That part worked because these plastic bottles were consumed in large numbers and many of them found their way carelessly into the Ohio River.

The reality that this was made from discards is balanced by the good cheer I feel from the rainbow-inspired colors arranged on the weathered wood. If I had not put them into this form, they would be nearly invisible plastic units scattered over the land. These bottles are ubiquitous in our lives and even without the labels…we recognize what many of the products were.

This is where I left the latest of the Petroleum Rainbow series…pressed by verdant grapevines and an ever encroaching river. Since I made this piece last week…our area has been buffeted by torrential rains and high winds. It wouldn’t surprise me to see that water now laps at this assemblage’s “feet”. It has been a remarkable week in other ways with the upholding of the Affordable Heath Care Act and making marriage a right for all throughout the land. I hope that these great quality of life decisions we make will keep the state of the environment a high priority too. One last picture before leaving…also taken in the western section of the park….so long from 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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Green Bottles and Flip-Flops

Posted in Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, Found objects, Photograpy, plastic, repurposed art, sense of place, Site specific art, tagged Art, art and nature, art and the environment, art process, artist at exit 0, collection, creative process on June 1, 2015| 4 Comments »

May was a quick month and this year is flying by. I’m still exploring much of the flotsam that was left behind by early Spring flooding. At several places in the park you can encounter large driftwood mounds and debris fields that are aggregates of the natural and artificial. I was exploring a large mound near the railroad bridge and came across this large, wooden, manmade structure that was laying partially exposed. I was curious about what this could be and so I picked a route over the driftwood to take a better look.

Walking carefully to the other side, I discovered that this wooden structure is a fairly long boat dock that the river had claimed. I was taken by the dock and its visual proximity to the railroad bridge. The idea that this could make a nice location for another site specific work soon came to mind. I have been having fun making images and assemblages of plastic bottles that washed into here and looking around…well, despite the overwhelming browness…there is also a lot of colorful plastic mixed into here.

What I could see was a “wealth” of green plastic soft drink bottles that lemon/lime carbonated beverages come in. So, I walked around the mound and boat dock and collected all the green bottles I could find. In the interest of full disclosure…there are also a few green glass bottles in here, but 95% of them are plastic. My idea was to activate this area by massing all the green bottles I could collect and store them “inside” the boat dock. Here are several views of what this looked like after I was finished.

The wooden dock echoes the structure of the bridge behind it. I feel that this site specific piece successfully worked with its immediate environment. The green of the bottles plays against the verdant green of the vegetation. As of this posting, this artwork is still intact. Many things I make out here are either destroyed by visitors or eventually fall apart on their own. If you were looking at this dock from the other side…nothing would betray the surprise that exits on the flip side. Here’s a few more views of my plastic green bottles piece. I’m needing a good title for this one, but nothing has registered with me yet.

While I was searching through the debris field, I was also looking for lost flip-flops. I found a nice number of them consisting of all sizes and colors which I stored in my collecting bag. After finishing the idea I had for the bottles…I looked around for another location to do a flip-flops site specific piece. My search took me to the nearby fossil outcropping and rocks. I emptied my bag upon the rocks and played around with several configurations until I hit upon something I found visually interesting.

I arranged the sandals from right foot to left and from largest to smallest. The oval shape echoes some of the ancient coral forms present in the rocks which date back to the Devonian Age over 350 million years a go. One of my all time favorite fossil discoveries was made in Laetoli, Tanzania by famed archaeologist Mary Leakey in 1978. She found preserved in hardened volcanic ash, a set of bipedal hominid footprints of a possible family group that dates back 3.7 million years and at the time were the world’s oldest human-like footprints. Flash forward to the present, these flip-flops are the descendants of those ancient tracks. When I’m out on the rocks at the Falls of the Ohio…I often think about how deep time is and how far back the history of life goes.

June is already shaping up to be a rather interesting month at the Falls of the Ohio and I will be interacting with the park in some different ways than I usually do. More about that as the month progresses. For now, I will end with one more image of my flip-flops piece as I left it upon this ancient landscape. See you later!

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The Disquieting Rainbow

Posted in Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, deer skull, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Found objects, Green, lost and found, plastic, Plastic art, sense of place, Site specific art, tagged Absurd, Art, art and nature, art and the environment, art process, artist at exit 0, Beach combing, collecting, creative process on May 25, 2015| 2 Comments »

May has turned into a productive month for me. If April was defined by rain and flooding…May has been on the dry side. This break in the weather (along with the nice coolness of Spring) has me out at the river at every available chance. Friends of mine already think that I live out here, but that’s far from the case. I wish I could physically be out here more because I don’t tire of the park and I find enough stuff to keep me busy. The reality is I’m lucky to make it out here on the weekends and holidays. Over the years, I’ve established routines and I know the place so well that as I walk along, I’m strategizing on what can be done with the materials that I find at various locations. The digital part is done from home.

In the aftermath of our most recent flooding, a great amount of wood and manmade debris has settled into the park. I find something interesting to me most everywhere I look. Here’s another Sand Rose that I encountered, blooming among the driftwood. This blossom has fabric-like petals and lacks the wonderful perfume that more conventional roses possess.

Covered in burrs and various plant seeds is this plush parrot that I found intertwined in the driftwood. Lost toys are evocative and in this case, I’m also reminded that 2016 will mark the centennial of the extinction of the Carolina Parakeet which was this country’s only native member of the parrot family. Both the Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet passed from existence within a couple of years of one another in the same small aviary that now stands as a memorial to them at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Walking through the driftwood I found this intact and antlered deer skull which is a first for me. I have found other white-tail deer skulls before, but they all were from does. Over the years , I have found deer remains out here in the wake of flooding. Perhaps the most memorable experience happened about twenty years a go. While hiking with a friend, we came to an area where we could smell the sickly sweet odor from something decomposing, but searching the grounds we weren’t able to locate the unfortunate creature. By chance, I happened to look up where the smell seemed the strongest and discovered a deer carcass that was lodged in a tree about 12 feet or so off the ground. Of course, it found its way there when the river was high and became stranded when the river receded. At the Falls of the Ohio State Park you are likely to find unexpected things snagged in the willows.

Over the last few weeks, I have been “playing around” more with the brightly colored plastic elements that wash into the park. I find these site specific compositions rather fun and provoking to do. Usually, all the plastic elements that the river delivers become somewhat unified and integrated within the matrix of mud, wood, and other detritus. I believe this thorough mixing keeps people from seeing the true extent these artificial materials and objects are present in the free world. By choosing to concentrate on a color, like red in this case, I hope to call attention to these materials in a novel way. This piece started with the nailed together wood frame I found on the driftwood pile. There are also lots of milled and used lumber elements in the mix too. Building on previous pieces I did with other colors, I decided to see how much red was in this given area. “Red Composition” was the result. With red being such a popular color…I thought I would come across more red than I actually did. What I did find seemed subject to bleaching in the sun and made me wonder if red plastic was in general use less because of the fugitive nature of the pigments? Next time I’m at the grocery store I will test this theory more. Among my red finds of the day include an old flashlight body that had filled with dirt and had a small willow tree growing out of it. Here’s another example of a plastic composition I did on this particular day.

This is another in a series I have been calling “Petroleum Rainbows”. I started with the wooden bench I found in the immediate area and set it up near the riverbank in the willow habitat. I gathered all the brightly colored items I could find tangled in the driftwood and sitting on the sandy beach and of course most of them are made from plastic. Testing my fugitive color theory, I did notice a prevalence for the colors green, black, blue, yellow, and white. Red, orange, and purple were a little harder to come by. I filled the top of the bench with my river finds and loosely organized it to resemble a color spectrum. As one Facebook observer noted with a little ire, my colors don’t follow the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet scheme of a true rainbow. I have done this intentionally as a further provoking element. Beyond the surface attraction of this party-colored plastic, the brain does register that something is not quite right here which is the feeling I want to leave the observer with…hence, disquieting rainbow. I made this piece a couple of weeks a go and it has remained relatively intact. I have been busy at the Falls and have more to show, but will wait a bit before posting those projects. I hope everyone out there is having a nice Memorial Day holiday. See you next time from the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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Plastic Color Concentrate

Posted in Art, Artist at Exit 0, Clarksville, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, Installation, Louisville, old refrigerator, photography, plastic, public art, repurposed materials, Styrofoam, tagged Absurd, art and nature, art and the environment, art exhibition, art process, art studio, artist at exit 0, Beach combing, blue, collecting, creative process, driftwood, flip flops, plastic bottles, plastic containers, yellow on May 4, 2015| 4 Comments »

April’s tale was of a high Ohio River and rain fall for the record books. Twice the river rose to flood stage before subsiding back into its muddy banks. Left in its now drying wake are trash mounds and islands of wood and debris that were pushed and floated upon the water’s surface by wind and current. In this mish mash of culture and nature I carefully pick my way over and through the debris fields at the Falls of the Ohio. All along the riverbank, the dull and muddy colored wood contrasts with the reflected light from hundreds of plastic bottles and chunks of bright white Styrofoam.

I picked a great day to visit the river. As soon as I arrived in the park, I could hear several newly arrived male Northern Orioles calling back and forth through the tall cottonwood trees. I even found several eggs. Here is a large blue plastic egg nestled in shredded tree bark and plastic bottles. I also found a muddy, but real Canada goose egg now too cool to incubate. There was an adult goose hanging out near me and I suspect some early nesters had their clutch washed away by the second flood. I decided with so much brightly colored plastic scattered all over this woody mound…I wondered if I could put any of it to use?

As you can see in this detail image…I decided to concentrate on the color yellow. I stayed within a certain area and collected all the yellow objects on this driftwood mound. It was tricky work because the footing was not good. Several times I sank to my hip as my leg would go through the loosely tangled branches, dirt, and logs.

I call this piece “Yellow Concentrate”. It consists of mostly plastic, quart-sized oil containers along with a few larger laundry detergent jugs. There are a few odd items as well. I found three rubber ducks on today’s adventure and used two of them here. I used a bowl-like depression in the driftwood as my setting to assemble and sort through the junk. I was glad to have the wooden platform in the foreground because it was also easy on the feet.

This site gave me potential for a few good views. Here is “Yellow Concentrate” with the railroad bridge in the background.

Now here’s the same piece with the skyline of the City of Louisville on the southern shore. All that massed yellow really pops you in the eye. Individually, all these yellow plastic containers barely registered scattered across the debris field, but it’s a different story when you bring them together. Feeling pretty good about yellow…I decided to next try a different color.

As I was collecting all the yellow containers…I was also sorting out the blue ones and throwing them in the driftwood bowl. On a nearby fallen, diagonally leaning tree trunk…I arranged my collection. The big blue Easter egg is near the center. As I worked on “Blue Extract”, the hole I was standing in kept getting wider and deeper.

Most of these containers are plastic oil and liquid detergent bottles, but I mixed a few aerosol cans in as well. In this line are seven plastic and rubber balls. One last project before calling it a day. I stayed in the same area and pulled aside all the lost flip-flops I encountered. I laid them all out on the white surface of a metal refrigerator that had floated in here with the last flood. It looked like the Shoe Shaman had been this way too.

The stark whiteness of the fallen refrigerator reminded me of the white pedestals that you would find in an official gallery. I organized the lost foot wear from smallest to largest, left to right. I soon left for home with a hefty collecting bag full of “river treasure” and a camera loaded with images. Every thing else was left in place. I will come back when the river level drops a little bit more and the fudge-like mud has had the chance to harden in the sun. There is still so much more to explore in the park and can see myself keeping busy for the rest of the year. Here’s one last look over the shoulder at today’s location at the Falls of the Ohio. I realized after the fact, that the found milk crate I used to move materials around was so bright red that it holds its place among the yellow and blue. Until next time!

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Shoe Shaman of the Big Blue Nation

Posted in Art, driftwood, ecosytem, flip-flops, Found objects, lost sandals, nature, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, sense of place, Styrofoam, tagged Absurd, absurd story, art and nature, art and the environment, artistatexit0, Beach combing, flood story, recycled art materials, Smurfs on April 16, 2015| 13 Comments »

It’s mid April and the television meteorologists have said it all. If the Kentuckiana area receives one more drop of rain…we will set an all time local record for precipitation during any April since records have been kept. With half a month to go and more rain in the forecast for this week…that record is a goner. As I write this…the river is still rising. I mentally contrast this to what is happening in California with their severe drought. I wonder if there are any billionaires out there that would like to invest in a pipeline that would send all this extra water to where it’s needed most? After all, isn’t water a much more precious commodity than crude oil? We don’t send exploratory satellites and space craft into the vast distances of the universe looking for petroleum. It’s water we seek because in a fundamental way we realize that water is the key to life.

The following adventure happened last weekend which was warm and beautiful, but with an ever-rising river. The large driftwood mound under the railroad bridge I documented in my last post has broken apart and floated away along with my absurd March Madness figure. Perhaps when the river returns to its usual water levels, I may run into him once again? For now, I am exploring a section of the Ohio River Greenway which is near the Interpretive Center’s entrance and has a nice view of Louisville’s skyline. The riverbank does not lack for junk and before long I’ve photographed and collected a full bag of possibilities for future use. It was while I was absorbed in my own head space that I bumped into a most unusual character that was engaged in what looked to be some type of ritual at the water’s edge.

What I first thought was singing turned out to be chanting and it was coming from this exotic guy. I’m sure I must have had the strangest expression on my face! Despite my presence, this blue-helmeted figure with some kind of mandala on his chest was practically knee-deep in muddy water and lining up found flip-flops on a beached log. A perfectly normal activity don’t you agree? I’m assuming he gathered these sandals from all the other flotsam and jetsam that has washed into here? That part I can understand because I have an ongoing collection of the same footwear that I hope to make into something grand and profound some day.

I remained quiet, stayed observant, and took these photographs. I saw the blue helmeted man face west and chant. He later did the same thing looking towards all the cardinal directions. On occasion, he would carefully pick up a sandal and whisper to it before placing it back upon the water-logged trunk of a limb-less tree. For emphasis, he would also do this little hop dance step in the muddy water. I waited for him to finish before interrupting him with a few questions of my own.

Finally, I had my chance to speak and the mysterious figure looked my way. I was surprised that I could understand what he was saying. First, he thanked me for respecting his custom by not interrupting his ceremony. He also said that it is very important that the flow of energy continue unabated if the ritual was to take hold. Filled with questions, I asked his name and what was he doing? Patiently, he explained that he was the Shoe Shaman of the Big Blue Nation, a holy man and offered as proof the ill-fitting helmet on his head which was the official crest of his high office. I didn’t say anything, but thought the Shoe Shaman’s head-gear bore an uncanny resemblance to a Smurf’s head. I wondered if that was in fact the Big Blue Nation he was referring to? If that indeed was the case…well, it did make some sense in a surreal sort of way. There are many cultures that have legends about “little people”. I asked what he was doing with the sandals and he said that working with footwear was his specialty. Each shoe, in this case, each lost sandal…has a direct connection to the soul of its former owner and is holy to them. The weight of each person is impressed into the sole’s foam and is as individual as a fingerprint. In his culture, they have a saying that you can’t fully understand someone until you stand in their shoes. I said we have a similar saying. The Shoe Shaman said that his goal is to affect the river’s empathy and not to further enrage it for taking the water and environment for granted. My new friend was attempting to appease the flood waters by asking the river to forgive our carelessness and to accept the sacrifice that had been prepared for it on this altar of wood. The shaman assured me that only in this way would the river agree to return to its normal banks and not seek out our kind that had been hurtful towards it.

I’ll admit that the idea of a revenge seeking river stunned me some, however, history is full of epic floods. In our arrogance, we forget how at Nature’s mercies we really are. My curiosity sated…it was time to move on. I left the shaman at that interstitial zone between water and land. Slogging through the mud, I paused briefly sitting on a dry log and thought about what I had witnessed as I also picked the mud off the bottom of my shoes. I am hoping that he was successful in intervening on our behalf and only time will tell. For my part, I will never forget the scene and will pledge to do my part to be respectful towards creation by celebrating it and in doing so…hope to save myself and those dearest to me. I don’t ever want one of our soles to go missing and find itself on a log floating somewhere along the Ohio River. Until the river retreats…

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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Archive for the ‘driftwood’ Category

Park West Petrochemical Rainbow

Eventually, the River Goes Back Down

More Fun with Plastic Jugs

Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Making New Friends

Green Bottles and Flip-Flops

The Disquieting Rainbow

Plastic Color Concentrate

Shoe Shaman of the Big Blue Nation

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