Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Falls of the Ohio’ Category

Yellow Freaky Day

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2012| 6 Comments »

The sun is shining and it’s a brand new year and because it’s also 60 degrees out today…you might not recognize that it is also supposed to be  winter here at the Falls of the Ohio!  I’m sure it will come, but for now we have followed our wettest year ever with a very warm beginning for 2012.  I’m walking the banks of the Ohio River on the Indiana side across from my home in Louisville, Kentucky.  This new year marks the ninth year I have been engaged by this project which has meandered as the river has.  I’m using the material culture that washes up in the park to make my odd form of public art.  I’m hoping to capture something about the spirit of the times in which we live within the context of this very special place which is important both to the history of life and my country’s history.

Last year ended with more high water which deposited even more debris into the park.  One would think that if you had experienced as much rain and flooding as we did that there would be little left to wash into the river.  You might assume that all the small streams and creeks and all the water ways that feed into the river would be flushed out and that the river would eventually flow cleanly…or as clean as it can after passing through our urban landscape.  Unfortunately, you would be wrong and I have the pictures to prove it.

I’m always on the look out for wildlife and birds in particular.  On this day, even the year round avian residents are hard to find.  Everything about this day was very still. The most noteworthy bird I came across was this rubber duck which is somewhat fitting since I ended last year with a collection of rubber duckies that I have found out here over the years. This holiday duck is just the latest to enter my collection.  Oddly, when I looked at this day’s images on my home computer, I discovered that many of my finds were also “yellow” in color hence the partial title of this post.  Here are a few of my other finds from this day.

How long do you think it will take before people won’t recognize what this is?  I came across this toy telephone handset among the wood chips. I guess you can view this as the original cordless telephone.  I think nature is calling.

This bright plastic train is missing its opposite half which washed away with the river.  It was sitting at the water’s edge on gravel deposited by the last ice age.

I even found SpongeBob out here, but what he’s doing looking like one of the queen’s guards, I haven’t the slightest idea?  I saluted back and dropped him into my collecting bag.

Although this isn’t some ancient ivory carving of a mammoth…I did pick this pachyderm up and he snuggled next to SpongeBob.

I’m not sure whether a child or the family dog chewed this plastic horse up, but it was missing part of its leg and had other teeth marks on it as well.  This is not the only horse I found out at the Falls today.  This following piece was much bigger.

It’s not yellow, but it’s a horse of some kind.  I imagine that this is a toy marketed to girls who would enjoy combing the artificial hair on its flowing mane and tail.  Frankly, it could use a good brushing because there were all kinds of burs and seeds tangled in it.  It might be interesting to find out what kinds of plants are ensnared here and I thought about planting the mane somewhere.  And now, another change of pace featuring horse power of a different sort.

I don’t pick up everything I come across otherwise I would need more than the single collecting bag that I bring out here.  Frequently, just taking a picture of a found object is good enough.  Here is a plastic Mustang car mixed in with the driftwood.  As I’m walking I’m also picking up Styrofoam, sticks, nuts, and whatever strikes my fancy.  And, as is my habit…I try to make something from what I’ve collected and photographed out here before I head for home.  Here is the first figure of the new year constructed from junk I found on this adventure.

I made this small figure in the western most section of the park.  The yellow earrings are actually fishing lures.  I came across these two lead jigs with the bright yellow feathers that were tied in tandem and fished on the same line.  The red-head gear is a fabric and Styrofoam flower that’s falling apart.  The necklace is a plastic heart-shaped locket.

While I was making this piece…I was discovered by three boys who live in the nearby town of Clarksville.  They were having an adventure of their own on this beautiful day.  The boys were curious about what I was doing and periodically they would come closer for a peek.  Apparently, what I was doing didn’t sit well for whatever reason with one of the boys who then started to call me names!  “Hey mister…your’e a freak!”  He called me a “freak” several times before running away.  Later, his two friends came by and apologized for him and we had a good conversation about calling people names.  I even reminded one of the boys of his social studies teacher and I’m guessing that’s somebody he has respect for?  Since the day was getting long, I decided it was time to head home.  I left my little figure with the feather earrings near the spot where I last saw the boys and perhaps they will find it.  Maybe it will give them the idea that it can be more fun to be creative than destructive.  That is always my hope.  Have a great year out there!

Read Full Post »

Rubber Ducky Collection

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and environment, birding, collections, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2011| 10 Comments »

One last post before all of 2011’s sand runs through the hour-glass!  Here are a few of the many rubber duckies that I have come across at the Falls of the Ohio over the years.  I thought it would be a fun way to end the year. If you would like to see more ducky images…I’ve posted a new collection, “Kentucky Lucky Ducky Collection” which can be found in my Pages section.  Have a Happy New Year and may 2012 be kind to all!

Read Full Post »

Styro-Snowman and the Park of Misfit Toys

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Falls of the Ohio, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 24, 2011| 10 Comments »

The holiday season is upon us and I’m here at the Falls of the Ohio to renew one of my Christmas traditions.  For many years, I have been creating and sending out card images from stuff I’ve made or found washed up here.  This post documents what I came up with on this particular visit along the Ohio River.  Friends and family tell me they enjoy receiving these admittedly unusual cards.

To continue the story a bit from my last post, I came across some evidence that my friend Steve the Arrowhead Man had visited this area before me.  I came across this site where he sat on a log and chipped away rock from its matrix to reveal the projectile point that he sees within it.  The wind has blown away his foot prints.  Talking with Steve, he is an individual who believes that “all hell is about to break loose” and he views man’s poor treatment of the environment as the reason this crisis will occur.  To him, it might not happen today or tomorrow, but the road before us is clear to him and it is not a pretty picture.  During my last conversation with Steve he urged me to obtain a book on edible wild plants and study it.  I know that Steve has been periodically homeless and has tried living off the land.  I’ll admit that during my more pessimistic moods…that I agree with him.  However, I come out to the river to appreciate the natural world and exercise my creative muscles.  This usually puts me in a better frame of mind.

Since my last visit the river level has dropped exposing more of its sandy shoreline.  The aluminum boat that was out here is gone and I wondered if Steve was able to salvage it or if the authorities contacted its owner based on the registration numbers along its side?  As I walk along the bank, I’m keeping my eyes open for whatever is new that has washed ashore.  As usual I find toys like this miniature dinosaur which I scooped up into my collecting bag.  There’s an animated holiday special that airs on television each year that has been a favorite of mine since I was a child.  I know I’m revealing a lot here by admitting that I’m a fan of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”!  There is one setting within this Christmas classic that always gets me.  It’s the Island of Misfit Toys where irregular play things (like a train with square wheels and a Charlie in the Box) are sent into “exile” on this island and “exist” with the hope that Santa Claus will eventually rescue them and present them to kids who will love them.  Ah, pathetic fallacy strikes again. The poignancy of that image has loomed large in my imagination ever since I first saw it.  At times I feel that the Falls of the Ohio State  Park is that island and that the lost and misfit toys arrive here via the river.  Here are a few other toys I found on this particular day.

Here is the remains of a remote control car that was deposited upon the driftwood.  I wonder why it found itself in the river?

I came across this washed-up plush figure with a big nose and mustache.  I feel I “know” this character, but can’t place him at the moment.  Lying less that ten feet away from him was this very recognizable and classic character.  I wonder if they  traveled together?

I turned this Winnie the Pooh plush figure over and removed the burrs that were attached to it and then brushed some of the wet sand off of it.  Who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh and what is he doing in the river?  He is far away from the Hundred Acre Woods.  I carried Pooh and the “mustache man” with me as I gathered the other items I found (including a large chunk of Styrofoam and parts of a garden hose) and proceeded to make my next Falls creation.

Here is version #1 of the Styro-Snowman.  He’s a bit larger than most of the figures I have made out here.  I used a plastic coffee container for a hat, but wasn’t satisfied with it.  I wish I could have found different head-gear, but this is what that day presented to me.  I posed my two little outcast friends at his base and snapped this image.  This was a relatively warm and super bright day as you can see by the strong cast shadows.

This is version #2 minus the coffee container.  The eyes are the blackened remains of nuts from the buckeye tree.  I used other buckeyes and a few walnuts for the “buttons”.  The remaining elements are plastic fragments and driftwood.  Here is another detail.

I also found a length of yellow nylon rope which I employed as a belt.  I tucked the Pooh figure under it as well as a plastic booze bottle to add that extra element of holiday cheer.

As the day was moving along and since I was needed elsewhere…I left this figure at this location, but added one more element.

I added this message in the sand and walked away.  Inside my camera were enough images that I later printed for my holiday cards.  Along the walk back I noticed this white chair near the top of a tree.

This image is another reminder of how high the river can get during one of its flood stages.  The chair was deposited here during last Spring’s high water, but is especially visible now because the leaves have dropped.  I’m always amazed at how variable this relatively small place can be.  I hope everyone out there in the wider world has a great holiday season and I will end with one more message in the sand.

Read Full Post »

Figure with Life Vest

Posted in Absurd, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2011| 3 Comments »

As expected we set a new yearly rain total record and we still have time left in 2011.  At the moment, we have had 66 inches of rain breaking the old mark by two inches.  I waited for the river to go down a bit before returning to the Falls of the Ohio.  The water was still high which restricted how far I could go.  One very noticeable difference from my last visit was this lost boat.  The high water we did receive loosened it from its mooring up river and it showed up here.  I wonder if someone will attempt to salvage it?

I am always hopeful that I will find lots of cool stuff and this is what I came up with on this trip.  I’ve started collecting the plastic toy wheels that come off toy trucks and cars.  I don’t know what I will eventually do with them, but then again that’s part of the fun!  Here’s a closer image of the blue plastic parachutist in the spot where he landed.

This other figure in the blue coat is my friend Steve the Arrowhead Man.  I’ve nicknamed him this because he likes to knap or chip projectile points from the local rock as the Indigenous people once did.  For him it is a primeval aesthetic.  Steve was the only person I saw on this very cold, but sunny day.  Steve was hunting for rock, but was having no luck because the river was still too high.  I asked how life was treating him and he said that things were a little better for him.  He now has permission to be in the park to practice his craft.  Steve did tell me he once received a ticket for “littering” because someone found a small pile of rock chips he made during the creation of an arrowhead.  We both had a good laugh about that considering his “waste” rock is far less offensive than the daily barrage of plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups that other visitors have strewn about the park.  The new administration at the park has actually embraced people like Steve and potentially me too.  The two of us are living interpreters of the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  For so long, it felt like the only interesting events occurred in this place two hundred or more years a go.  The Falls, however, is a living site and should be treated as such.  This blog is a sampling of the reality that exits in the park at the present moment.  No doubt two hundred years from now people will find a completely different set of circumstances and folks might be curious about us…or not?

This is the figure I made with found materials on this day.  I walked as far east as I could in the park before the river and deposited driftwood blocked the way.  Along my walk, I came across a discarded life vest and I appropriated it for this figure.  I also found the Styrofoam here and there and carried it under my arms. The distinctive black eyes are old nuts from the buckeye tree. The nose is the spray nozzle from a plastic bottle.  A friend told me the other day that he prefers the animal sculptures I make over the “human presences” I create from these poor materials.  I had to agree, but told him that my figures do contain a certain amount of realism to them because they reflect so well the absurdity of the human condition and our relationship to the planet.

With his thin smile I left this figure waving goodbye and turned around for home.  It was time because I was feeling cold and my left knee was aching.  One of the parting remarks that Steve said to me was that he was considering trying to save the aluminum boat we saw earlier.  I wonder if he tried?  I’ll ask him next time I see him.

Read Full Post »

A Quick Trip to a Rising River

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 27, 2011| 3 Comments »

I was taken a bit off guard on this visit to the Falls of the Ohio by a rising Ohio River.  While we have not received much precipitation recently, the same can’t be said for the parts of the Ohio River Valley north of here.  When I showed up on this visit much of the accessible riverbank was already underwater.  Here at the Falls the river level is regulated by a system of tainter gates and dams that helps ensure a steady water level for commercial barge traffic at the McAlpin Locks.  It is a curious notion to think how much of this environment is managed for the benefit of man.  Water is also released under these gates to help manage flooding along the length of the river and the land it passes through.

While walking the receding shoreline, I came across the remains of the larger recent figure I had set up in the tall grass.  The river had already captured and changed it.  I did find some new materials to make something with and this is the figure that resulted.  I have no doubt that it too is now gone.  I may find parts of it again once the river recedes.

He’s not the most attractive figure to say the least, but he’s what I had to work with on this day.  At first, I positioned him by some other objects that had washed into here during the spring floods.  As is my habit, I also moved him around to other locations that increasingly were being encroached upon by the rising river which was sending wave after wave crashing against the sandy beach.  Here are a few images of where I eventually left this figure to its fate.

The sky had this interesting quality to it.  Although it was still warm, the light conditions evoked a colder landscape.  I nearly expected to see a flock of Sandhill Cranes to pass by high above me in their characteristic “V-shaped flight pattern.  Since the day was proving to be less promising than anticipated…I decided to cut my day here short and move on to other concerns.  I left my latest figure on the log where it waved its good byes to the city on the opposite bank of the river.

All and all it was a rather melancholy day.  There are times I think I’m going to  be able to do more than I actually accomplish, but on this day the river was calling the tune.  I wonder how high the river will eventually get?

Read Full Post »

Hooray for Troop 1008!

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birds and birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 20, 2011| 8 Comments »

Last Saturday was a fun adventure for me and involved a few more people than usual too!  First, the morning light was fantastic and I met photographer Ross Gordon down at the Falls who is working on a photo project of his own.  We walked to my outdoor studio to see how things were weathering.  Everything looked relatively undisturbed.

On our way back to the parking lot, I was able to locate the Pied Woodpecker that had taken up temporary residency in the park.  My friend saw this as a great opportunity for a one of a kind photograph. Here’s Ross in action while the bird looks on with puzzled expression.

After that early adventure I had an appointment at the Interpretive Center I didn’t want to miss. I had received a nice invitation to hang out with Girl Scout Troop # 1008 while they pitched in to help clean up the park.

My friend Laura who works at Gallery Hertz has a daughter in scouting.  Since Troop #1008 had already scheduled a clean up at the river…she wondered if I could join them to talk about what I do in the park?  I began by showing the troop the bottle piece I had just finished and photographed before catching up with them this morning.  After the show and tell, the gloves were put on and the litter bags were distributed as the young women started cleaning up around the Interpretive Center.  They did a really good job too as shown by this large sheet of plastic they pulled out of the underbrush.

I followed around collecting trash with the scouts and made this figure from the junk I found.  I left him standing near a path along the Woodland Trail.

The figure included bits of hickory nuts, wood, and plastic.  The small purple ball was a good find and helped make this piece more interesting. The nose is part of an old corn cob.

My composite figure had to give a little shout out to the troop for their hard work.  In what seemed a short amount of time, an impressive pile of trash bags appeared by the park’s dumpster.  In a great mood…the clean up team assembled for this celebratory photograph.

After the troop left, I hung out at the river for another hour or so.  There was still a little color left in the trees that soon would be gone.

The little dark dot near the center of the above image is a fisherman I had been watching.  He has hip waders on which has helped him get out to a channel where the fish were biting. While working with the girl scouts, the fisherman passed by on his way home.  He was nice enough to show me his impressive stringer of fish.

He had some nice saugers (dark and mottled) and a few hybrid stripped bass.  I’m always pleasantly surprised by some of the fish I see being caught out here.  Well, that’s all the time I have today.  Have a great week and see you later!

Read Full Post »

Mountaintop Minibar

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2011| 4 Comments »

As promised, here are a few images from my completed bottle project.  For the last several months I have been finding empty liquor bottles and filling them with the coal that washed into the park after last spring’s flood.  A recent invitation to participate in a coal-themed art exhibition gave me a new reason to work with familiar materials.

It’s my assumption that the coal is in the Ohio River because it washed or fell off barges destined for power plants in the valley?  In places under the railroad bridge there were deposits several inches thick on the beach.  Not all of it was coal gravel, but included pebbles and larger pieces as well.  My “favorite” rocks were the ones that the river tumbled smooth into egg-shapes.  The white flecks in the black gravel are fragments of mussel shells.

In my mind I made a link between the empty booze bottles and the coal.  Both are products that require extraction to bring into being before being consumed in ever addictive quantities.  Putting the coal back into the bottles was a way to put random carbon back into storage and also feel some sense of doing something positive and purposeful by at least removing these materials from the Falls of the Ohio.  In Kentucky, we are consuming our mountains for their coal a sip here and shot there and the social and environmental challenges are adding up to a bigger headache in the wider world.

Since I started this piece here I also wanted a photo of it in the environment in which it was created one found and filled bottle at a time.  Between trips to the Falls I would store the bottles in my basement until I got enough of them to make something with.  When I finally decided I had more than enough I dragged it all back down to the river and set it up on a pretty autumn day.  I also recalled the badly twisted ankle I had over the summer that took weeks to heal.  I was doing this very activity when I rolled my ankle over in the sand.  I think the finished piece has about sixty bottles on it. Most of them are made of glass, but the smallest ones are plastic. All the wood table/altar pieces were also originally found at the Falls of the Ohio.  I used a small folding hand saw and cut the wood to length before bringing it home.  Here’s a few views of the completed sculpture set up by the river.

I had trouble coming up with a title for this work, but finally thought “Mountaintop Minibar” was working for me as much as anything else.  Who knows…I may think of something else in time.

I prefer seeing my work out here by the river.  All the other information in the  pictures just adds to the moment.  I did take a few images of my minibar against a black cloth at the church studio.  Here’s what it looks like by itself and with a detail of the bottles.  So far, it looks like this work will be exhibited in an exhibition in October 2012 and perhaps other opportunities will come up before then.  And now, for the last two images.  Thanks for checking in!

Read Full Post »

A Day with Wedgehead

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2011| 3 Comments »

We have had a warm and mostly dry autumn thus far at the Falls of the Ohio.  I’m taking advantage of another lovely weekend to go exploring along my favorite spots on the riverbank.  I usually begin by going down to the water’s edge to see if anything new has washed up.  Here are a few of the objects I came across and added to my ever burgeoning collecting bag.  Some of my finds I will use in my sculptures while the more interesting objects will enter one of the various river collections I have been assembling.   As usual, I find some doll or doll element along the river’s edge .  Aside from plastic balls…dolls are the toy that I find the most which has always struck me as being odd. First, I came across this tiny doll with purple hair.  If you look closely you can see burrs that are snagged in her hair-do.  Later, I found this larger doll that was buried in the sand.  I flipped her over and took her “portrait” and then walked away.  It’s very possible that I will find her again in a different context. My most interesting find of the day was this plastic ax-head.  I’m always on the look out for any real artifacts from the Indigenous people who lived here for thousands of years before Europeans arrived, but I have never found even the slightest fragment of pottery or the flakes left over from chipping projectile points.  I think the river here is just too dynamic for those kind of discoveries.  Nevertheless, this plastic ax-head says a lot about the time in which it was made.  First, it is made of hollow plastic which is of course not nearly as durable as flint.  Second, it clearly says where it was made which in this case is Hong Kong.  Lastly, it promotes an inaccurate characterization of who are native people are.  Here are the images that are on this souvenir tomahawk.

After scoping out the river’s edge…I move up the riverbank with the larger pieces of Styrofoam I have found and submit to my own urge to make something.  Here is this day’s figure starting with the head in progress.  You can gauge its size from my feet which are intruding in the bottom edge of the frame.  As I walk along, I’m also looking for expressive sticks to use for arms and legs.  The only tool I’m using here is my pocket knife.

After putting all the pieces together…I move back down to the river and try to capture another portrait in the context of this day.  Usually, I take several images and a few of these capture how active the river was.

The sunlight was bright on this day and cast strong shadows which I like.  One difficulty of photographing polystyrene is that it is so relentlessly white that it reflects the light so strongly often washing out my images.  Sometime’s it is if the light is emanating from the figure itself.  I’m sure photographing some of my sculptures with infrared film would yield interesting results.

The last picture I snapped is where I left the figure before heading home.  I came to call him “Wedgehead” because of the shape of his noggin.  He was last seen standing in what looks to be tall grass, but is in fact young willow trees that sprouted since the last flooding.

Soon, all the leaves will be down and the bare bones of the Falls of the Ohio will show itself.  The sense of space will also greatly change creating another stage for the drama that is the Falls of the Ohio.  Have a great week everybody!

Read Full Post »

Post Halloween at the Falls of the Ohio

Posted in Absurd, Art, collections, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, recycled art, Styrofoam, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2011| 10 Comments »

I met my friend the “Professor” by the old cottonwood tree that has been turned into a hang-out of sorts for the local teenagers.  I don’t get to see him as often as I would like to…so the time we spend together is meaningful for me.  Usually, we pick a topic to converse about and see where it goes from there.  This time, since it was the end of October we decided that a Halloween-theme was in order.  By now it shouldn’t surprise the regular readers of this blog that all kinds of holiday related stuff also washes into the park along with all the regular junk that unfortunately is in the Ohio River.

The Professor and I have been friends for a few years now.  I first met him here by the river.  We are both beachcombers and it has been fun to recount our various discoveries.  It is interesting how people like to collect different things and the Professor keeps his own cabinet of curiosities which is composed of his river finds.  When I caught up with him this morning, he had already been prowling the river’s beaches and he was anxious to show me his treasures.  This is what he decided to keep to add to his growing river collection.

It’s not everyday that you encounter a lobster at the Falls of the Ohio.  On occasion, you do come across the small crayfish or “crawdads” that the herons and raccoons like to eat.  The Professor seemed especially happy to have found it.  His next exhibit was a bit peculiar and a tad distasteful.

Yes, it’s an old intact jar of pickles that reminded the Professor of the preserved specimens you might find in a medical museum.  While these “albino” pickles are indeed scary…they are not overtly Halloween decorations.  There was something inside the tree house that the Professor said did fit the bill and here is a snapshot of it.

Now here indeed was a true Halloween decoration that has been augmented with an improvised eye-patch and the worm dangling from its bony mouth is a plastic worm used for fishing.  This find was hanging up inside the tree house and my guess is that it is being used now to impart some pirate atmosphere.

With his beady little eyes shining, the Professor was anxious to see what I had brought.  Reaching into my collecting bag I pulled out an envelope of photographs.  One difference between the Professor and me is that I no longer feel compelled to pick up and carry home every little thing I find.  Sometimes a photographic image of it is enough for me and this set off a conversation about how nothing replaces being able to handle the real thing and how computers and on-line shopping are weirdly vicarious experiences.  I let the Professor rant a bit and of course…he’s right.  Regardless, I did show him my images and I’m glad to also share them with you.  Most of them are Jack-o-lantern candy containers for holding the actual trick or treat loot.  So, here are the pictures which span about a year and a half worth of finds.

Here’s a few smaller novelties that probably were part of the candy’s packaging.

I once found a skeletal reference of my own and I think it was used as a stopper for some kind of candy container?

And now for a couple of found disguises.

This full-face mask looks like a hockey goalie’s mask, but I think it recalls one of those scary Halloween movies which I’m not fond of.  The next one is more my style!

I thought it was humorous to encounter this plastic nose mask!  Okay, one last image before total boredom sets in.  Here’s another jack-o-lantern pumpkin I came across after last spring’s flooding.  It’s meant as a house decoration and was as large as a good-sized pumpkin.  It was so muddy where it rested that I just took this picture and went on my way.  Here’s hoping you all had more treats than tricks during the last Halloween.

Read Full Post »

Found Note in a Bottle

Posted in collections, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, recycled art, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , on October 19, 2011| 8 Comments »

For many years I’ve been beach combing at the Falls of the Ohio and I bet I’ve looked at thousands of bottles and never found one with a note in it…until now!  I was going through a bag at home where I’ve stored bottles I’ve collected in the park when I noticed one that had something rolled up inside of it.  I don’t know how long I’ve had this tiny bottle, but the enclosed note didn’t register at the time of discovery.

The bottle itself is somewhat unusual because it is so small.  It’s the size I remember being served on airline flights when people purchased mixed drinks.  The bottle is plastic and originally contained cherry flavored vodka which doesn’t sound too appetizing to me, but what the heck.  I fished out the note which is made of waxy paper with silver foil on one side.  The note itself is written with what looks to be orange color pencil and was a bit hard to read.  I got a little lump in my throat when I read it and it says…”I miss you Mom & Dad, New Albany, IN”.  New Albany is found down river from the Falls, across from Louisville,  and couldn’t have floated here from there.  So, I surmise the note was written in the park and then thrown into the Ohio River which then  washed back on the beach.  Today is my Mom’s birthday and now I’m going to call her to see if she had a good one?  So long for now.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »