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Rare Birds and the Month of July

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, birding, birds and birding, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, lost and found, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, Plastic art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, butterflies, creative ornithology, Dodo of the Ohio, ecostory, Falls of the Ohio, Genius loci, Mosquito Bird, natural and artificial, nature, nature and culture, plastic, rare birds, recycled art, sense of place, Silver-spotted Skipper, Styrofoam, Tawny Emperor, the great outdoors on July 28, 2016| 5 Comments »

I have always felt that if you did the research, you must publish your results. Here it is the tail-end of July and what?? not a single post this month from the Artist at Exit 0! Of course I have been out to the river on a couple of occasions and had a wonderful time. So far, it has been a relatively easy summer. We haven’t had spells of daily high temperatures pushing a hundred degrees that have marked some previous summers. Knock on wood. Every year and every season is different and 2016 will no doubt climatically distinguish itself locally in some way before this annual orbit around the sun is history.

According to the WordPress folks, this is Riverblog post #450! They are much better at keeping count than I am and so I will trust them on that. I mention this not in the way of a boast, but rather from personal amazement that I have found enough content out in the Falls of the Ohio State Park to help keep it going! I have a good friend who is also an artist and he used to blog on WordPress. He stopped writing right around his 500th post! He became a little disappointed that it was so time-consuming and didn’t lead to more sales or artistic opportunities. I guess he also got to a point where he had said everything he wanted to say? This post will combine a couple of river adventures together and is set for the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park. It’s getting to be high summer. I can tell by the heat and the blooming trumpet creeper vines growing on some of the cottonwood trees. Have you ever noticed that many of these trumpet creeper flowers have large ants in them?

Where moist conditions are prevalent out here, you will find great patches of Purple loosestrife plants growing under the cottonwoods and willows. The loosestrife is by far more common in the western section of the Falls of the Ohio. Despite being a very invasive species, they do add a beautiful pinkish-lavender color to the landscape and insects (particularly butterflies) seem to love their nectar.

I am sure to visit this area several times while the loosestrife flowers continue to bloom. Over the last several years, I have come across more butterfly species feeding off of these flowers including many swallowtail species (Tiger, Black Swallowtail, Spicebush, Pipevine, and Giant Swallowtail). These flowers are also favored by several different skippers which occupy this strange position between being true butterflies and true moths. It seems skippers possess qualities of both lepidoptera groups. Here is a nice Silver-spotted Skipper ( Epargyreus clarus ) I came across also feeding on the odd blooms of a Cephalanthus buttonbush.

There were other butterflies out on this sunny day, but I didn’t get good pictures of all of them. I did see my first Red Admirals of the year. I did manage this image of a Tawny Emperor ( Asterocampa clyton ) butterfly using the camera on my cell phone. It takes a bit of stealth to get the phone near enough to take a good image without scaring your subject away. Over the past two years, I’ve become accustomed to taking my cell phone with me on my trips to the river. I love that the device is so small, lightweight, and fits in my pocket and gives me a few more options than the digital SLR that I have. I have to imagine that these little digital cameras are just going to continue to get better and even more useful.

I am also on the alert for any bird movements or sounds in the area. On this expedition to the Falls of the Ohio I scored big by sighting two new bird species for my life list and getting decent pictures of both to show to any of you unbelievers out there! After walking in direct sunlight for over an hour, I decided to cool off by walking in the shade of the large cottonwood trees that grow along the edge of the river. I especially like the way this cottonwood tree fills the whole photo frame. When these trees release their fluffy, light seeds it can almost appear as though it is snowing in slow motion. The cotton fluff builds up and forms wind aided drifts on the ground.

I had directed my reverie up into the canopy of the trees when an unfamiliar bird flew just above my head. This bird is fast and I got a quick sensation of colors…light blue, white, and green. I was extremely lucky to get such good pictures of it in full flight. Check out how the tail feathers help with lift and aerial maneuvering…perfect for high-speed flight between the tree trunks.

I was elated when I realized that what just went whizzing by my ear is a species I have not seen in the park before. It has a couple of common names. Some people refer to it as the Cumberland Mockingbird (Mimus appalachians ) and around here I’ve heard people call it a “Mosquito bird”. This specimen was actively picking off in midair several small flies that I could detect in the sunshine flying over my sweaty head. The thought occurred to me that this bird and the Zika mosquito have moved into our area at about the same time.

The Cumberland Mockingbird seemed to be able to “read” the air and wind currents around structures like trees and high river banks. I observed it daringly flying and diving very near objects in its pursuit of an insectivorous meal. I saw it chasing another Falls of the Ohio specialty, the Eastern-eyed Click Beetle (Alaus oculatus ). This is the largest member of the click beetle family and can get 2 1/2 inches long. It is said that its cryptic coloring is meant to mimic bird droppings. As it happened this beetle was able to escape becoming the Cumberland Mockingbird’s lunch by hiding under some loose tree bark.

These click beetles always seem to be out at the Falls of the Ohio during the summer months. They are harmless as adults. Their larvae grows in decaying wood and are carnivorous. Our area usually has an abundance of decomposing wood because of periodic flooding and the water-logged trunks that come with it. I decided to move out of the shade because the mosquitoes were catching up with me and using me for snacks. Not even an actively feeding Mosquito bird could turn these small flies away from their blood mission.

Returning to the sunlight seemed to do the trick of chasing the noisome insects away. I moved away from the shade of the trees and returned to the intermittent light by the fossil outcroppings nearer the riverbank. All was right with the world. A cormorant was swimming in the river as an osprey flew overhead with fish in talons. I was happily engaged in my little world…when I heard the most unusual animal call of all. I just had to find out what could make such a mournful noise! I found a likely spot along a trail and just went quiet and motionless. If the gods were with me then I had a good chance of seeing this mystery animal which was continuing its two-syllable call as it drew nearer to me.

There was a movement low to the ground and a parting of vegetation when a dingy white bird emerged onto the trail in front of me. It puffed its body up and displayed its tail feathers in a showy fan. A few wiry blue feathers on his head forms a crest that moves and down with the hopping dancing motion this species requires for courtship. With a certain amount of fanfare, my first ever “Dodo of the Ohio” ( Pseudo dodo kentuckiana ) let itself be known that it was looking for companionship. I had also found it in the context of a flowering and fruiting Passion flower vine ( Passiflora ) growing over the sand. A pair of round, green fruits seemed to be the object of the dodo’s attention. Our dodo is not at all related to the extinct species, but it is far from being a common bird. Fortunately, it can fly, albeit weakly. This at least keeps it off the ground while it sleeps at night. I watched the dodo for several more minutes before it flew off. The chance meeting of these two exotics was an amazing and unforgettable happening that helped make July an incredible month. See you again sometime soon from the Falls of the Ohio.

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May in Kentuckiana

Posted in Absurd, Art, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, lost and found, material culture, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, Photograpy, plastic, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, toy horses, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Bob Hill, creativity, Crying Indian, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Hidden Hills Nursery, nature, plastic horses, plastic pollution, repurposed materials, sense of place, Styrofoam, the environment on May 14, 2016| 2 Comments »

I’ve been remiss in posting new stories although I remain as busy as ever with my river art. Of late, I have had fewer opportunities to go to the river because of rain, work responsibilities, and lots of family birthdays…which are all mostly good things!! In this post, I will compress a lot of goings on starting with a quick trip to the Falls of the Ohio a few weeks back. It’s officially Spring because the migrating birds have been through and the resident Baltimore Orioles have returned to build their hanging nests and raise their young. Hearing the orioles’ calls is something I look forward to every year. It seems we are having a bit cooler Spring which to my mind seems much more “seasonal” as my memory of this area and time of year is accustomed to. As with any trip to the river, I begin by searching for the latest junk that I either overlooked or has just arrived. Here are pictures of some recent finds.

My sharp eyes spied this among the driftwood. It’s a plastic, fluid-filled “citrus slice”, perhaps an orange. If you freeze this little item until the fluid becomes a cold solid…well, you have yourself a novelty “ice-cube” for your drink. I intercepted this on its way to the ocean and now is in my collection of odd and particularly useless plastic junk.

Of course, in this part of the country, the first Saturday in May also means the Kentucky Derby. On this particular foray to the river, I found two horses whose races have been run…so to speak! They are now river trash that have been discarded and happened to wash up here from who knows where. This stuff may have just traveled from across the river in Louisville, KY or floated hundreds of miles to reach this destination. My intuition tells me that this stuff has traveled far.

This is the first of these items that I have ever found. It’s a plastic pump bottle for what?…soap, hand lotion, or what have you? The snowman image is kind of fun. Finding this item is just a short leap of the imagination to this temporary creation.

Scouting around the immediate area produced enough detritus…I mean art materials to create this figure. I have become quite quick in being able to make an absurd sculpture from most anything I find around me. These figurative pieces are meant to be seen as absurd because I feel our handling of our environment is both silly, stupid, and ultimately tragic. I try my best to let my figures “communicate” this on their own through their “very being”, but occasionally, my true feelings come out and besides people are becoming more and more literal. These works are meant to call attention to the types of materials that make it into our environment, particularly through our precious waterways and as such help to build awareness of this situation. But, by now, if you don’t know that this form of degradation is happening during our time…then you simply prefer not to know. For me, it’s not enough to call attention to this problem, but to try to at least suggest something hopeful. I know this is very idealistic…but there you have it. What these artworks also try to embody is a call for creativity. Anybody and everybody’s creativity is required if we are to have any kind of future. What artists can do is take the same information that everybody else receives and by turning this information on its head…perhaps come up with something different and unexpected conclusions or applications. Creativity, however, is not just the province of a gifted few. It’s truly in everybody if folks could just recognize it in its many forms and try to cultivate it just a little bit. Creativity is our kind’s “ace in the hole” and is probably why we have evolved this far in the first place. What I do at the river is as much a demonstration project where I have been willing to engage these often poor quality materials in the hopes of forming some kind of meaning from it all. I keep looking at the image directly above this paragraph. There’s smoke rising from a big fire on the Kentucky side of the river and the plume as I remember kept getting larger and darker.

The last time I made it out to the river I went by my absurd friend to see how he was doing. Predictably, he was in a sad state of affairs. His head was completely missing except for the broken snowman bottle that was lying on the ground. I just moved on. It’s always about moving forward and I had another mission on this day. This year we have had some decent flooding, no records mind you, just activity that is normal to this river. Each high water incident deposits something new upon these fabled shores. Today, I’m looking for large branches that have the potential to be arms or legs for some big figures I’m making at home. I have a new opportunity to show some work in a context that is a bit different. Retired Courier-Journal columnist, Bob Hill, has invited me to place work at his Hidden Hills Nursery in Utica, Indiana…just across the Ohio River from Louisville. Bob wrote a very nice article for Southern Indiana Living about my artwork and I want to have a nice showing which will occur on May 21. It’s a Saturday and if you are around and interested…the fun will start about 10:00 am. I have collected three particularly large sections of Styrofoam (probably old boat docks) and I’m using them for the bodies of figures I’m making to be placed on the grounds of his plant nursery. Bob specializes in hard to find flowers, trees, and shrubs. I’m really curious to see what I have in mind will look like on his property.

For the moment, the scene has shifted from the river to my basement studio at home. I call it a studio, but it’s really evidence that I have become a hoarder! It’s also proof that I don’t leave everything behind at the river. Believe me, I have taken more than my share of river crap away from the scene of the crime. My poor suffering wife and family. Anyway, here’s an in process view of a figure that became “The Crying Indian”. It’s a meditation on the old public service announcement that appeared around 1970 or 71 and if you were around then, you probably have vivid memories of it. I look forward to telling you more about this particular figure which has an interesting back story, but for now will just tease you with a sneak peek. When I finished this piece, I couldn’t help but take it out to the river to photograph it in the environment where I found most of the pieces. Here’s the proof. I will leave it here for now, but if you want to see the real thing…consider this your invitation to visit Bob Hill’s Hidden Hills Nursery. Hope to see some of you then.

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Plastic Arrangement in Black and White

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Installation, lost and found, Louisville, Kentucky, 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, artist at exit 0, Bernheim Arborteutm and Research Forest, Bernheim Artist in Residency Program, Chiel Kuijl, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Genius loci, material culture, nature, nature and culture, photography, plastic bottle, plastic container, plastic pollution, public art, sense of place, site specific art on May 1, 2016| 6 Comments »

April was a busy but mostly productive blur. Lots of balancing went on encompassing family, work, loss, art, birthdays, and spring transitioning to summer. We had an issue with our family computer that kept us quiet for a while, but hopefully that has been resolved. At this point, I have thousands of photographic images scattered everywhere and if by chance I happen to lose something…well, chalk that one up to the will of the digital gods. I had this strange realization about being a survivor of a by gone analog era that my sons don’t understand or have much experience with. These digital images I have been creating at the Falls of the Ohio can be as transient as the artworks they document. Fortunately, for my sanity, I was able to get to the river on a couple of occasions in this month, breathe deeply, and relax with my art. The last two visits I made to the park in April were gorgeous days and productive. Here are images made from that day’s project.

I have been having fun gathering up the different plastic bottles and containers that I have been coming across the last two years and making something with them. The arrangement I made today was composed of black and white plastic junk I came across after a few hours of work. All the black and white containers were found in the general area of where this piece eventually came together. I moved around a center location and after fanning in and out found enough stuff to bring back to “base”. I had previously picked out a place where I wanted to make something because I liked the view with the railroad bridge and the City of Louisville behind that.

I found a couple of nice plastic buckets and a nice fairly straight wooden plank and set the arrangement up with its back shielded by a huge log. There was an even larger log that had an end on it that had been scorched by fire, but it worked with the scene. First, I arranged all the black bottles up and moved from left to right and kept the large containers on the bottom row. I set the three “grayish” containers up next and that including the two silver jugs I came across. At least they seemed to represent some value between black and white and I took several photos with them in the configuration. Later in the day, I did return back to this spot and shot a few without the gray containers in the pictures…just the black and white ones which I liked too.

Here’s an image with a train crossing the tracks. Unfortunately, I did not get a shot before my piece was set up. Now for a progression of other work in progress photos documenting the brief peak of the “Arrangement in Black and White Plastic”.

While I was working out in the driftwood, new friend and fellow artist Chiel Kuijl came out looking for a few choice pieces of wood for his rope installation. Chiel has been the Artist at Residence at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest and is originally from the Netherlands. We have crossed paths out here at the Falls of the Ohio as well as socially with mutual friends. He has returned to Holland, but is due to return to Louisville this year to work on a recent commission.

Chiel later built a beautiful rope installation over water as well as distinctive “furniture” from ropes and driftwood. Park of this busy April included visiting Chiel out in Clermont, KY to see what he accomplished during his residency. I look forward to showing you a few images of his work in a later post. First!…let’s get through this one. I did remove the “gray” containers so it is just black and white butting up to one another.

I week after I made this piece, I returned to check on it and inspect my base studio. Here is an “after” picture. I already have plans in mind on how I can reuse this black and white plastic. One other fun development…I am working towards my show at Bob Hill’s Hidden Hills Nursery in Utica, IN. That will open on May 22 after some of the Kentucky Derby madness has subsided some. I have three very large figures I have been working on and you will see those soon. Have a wonderful Sunday…from the Falls of the Ohio and the Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog.

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Late March Petrochemical Color Composition

Posted in Absurd, animals, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, birding, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, 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, discarded Teddy bear, Falls of the Ohio, Genius loci, lost and found, material culture, nature, petrochemical junk, photography, plastic, plastic art, public art, rainbow spectrum, site specific art, toy bear on April 3, 2016| 2 Comments »

It’s the end of March and Spring is in full swing at the Falls of the Ohio. Today, I have a bigger block of time and so I’m going back to the western section of the park to see how flooding has affected this area. I am expecting to find lots of plastic and who know’s what else…and this trip did not disappoint. Just about everywhere I looked, I found plastic and other trash. I will begin with a few images of stuff I came across.

Quite unexpectedly, I found myself immersed in a bear theme. I found this little blue plastic bear intermixed with the driftwood. It may actually represent a panda, but I think the latest thinking on this unique animal is that it is indeed more closely related to bears than to raccoons. Looks like it’s sucking its thumb. And now for bear number 2.

Here’s a piece that was originally intended for a little person. I’m going to venture that this is a teething ring. From the wear on the surface of the plastic, it looks like this object has spent some time in the river. If this is not a teething ring…I have no idea what it was originally intended to be? Okay, here is bear number 3 and it is a lot larger that these first two examples.

This piece is spectacularly integrated into the surrounding gravel! About half of it is visible and the rest is hidden by gravel deposited here during the last Ice Age glacier. I posted this image on my Facebook account and it resonated with a lot of my friends. I could go on and on with the junk I’ve found out here, but I think I can also do that by showing you my latest artwork which is of course, composed of found junk. On this beautiful day, I decided to continue my explorations using colorful found plastic and made a new variation on this theme that I think turned out pretty well. I’ll start with a few in process shots.

This is some of the found plastic I came across on this day. I brought two collecting bags and filled them both up. I then scouted around and found a large blue plastic tub that I pressed into service before incorporating it into my finished arrangement. The yellow object on the left is a water cooler minus the lid. I had to do a bit of navigating around an obstacle course of downed trees and built up driftwood. I’m usually still stiff and tired the day after I do one of these because I guess I’m not used to getting that much exercise anymore! My two sons are quick to tell me that I’m not a young man anymore and yes I do get goaded by their trash talking into trying stuff that on occasion is more physical than I need to attempt.

After selecting a site to build my latest arrangement. I separate out all this gathered up plastic into their various color groups. On this day, orange and purple items were in short supply, but I worked around that. I set up this piece next to a log that looks to me like it was split in half. The side you can see that is rough and beautiful and takes the setting sun well. From the opposite side of this log…you wouldn’t be able to see any of the plastic. It is intended as a surprise for those who come across it on this side of the park.

I will begin with a view that incorporates more of the local scenery. This piece is located next to an old cottonwood tree that has a severe lean to it. I can imagine that at some time in the not too distant future that this tree will eventually fall over. Even from this far away, you can see the color introduced by these plastic containers and such. Let’s get closer.

Now you can get more of a sense for the degree in which this tree is leaning towards the river.

There are essentially two layers stacked up here. The big blue plastic tub has a found board that finds its partner consisting of the yellow water cooler sitting on a plastic yellow child’s chair. The span is pretty level. The rest is a matter of picking and choosing color hues that you think will work best together. These plastic elements are not fixed in some way. Everything is free-standing or leaning against what is next to it. I have by accident…set off chain reactions where the whole arrangement collapses down like dominoes. That is where a little patience comes into play by beginning again and hopefully learning from each individual situation.

I can see elements in these three details that I know I have used before in other projects and were later scattered across the park when the river floods. Perhaps you might recognize the green plastic Tug Boat or the “Hulk Hand” also found in the green section? They have appeared in other posts in my riverblog.

I hung out by this piece and the river for many hours. A few people came by, but nobody said anything. Perhaps this comes across as being an example of “unusual or eccentric behavior” to some people? Best to provide a wide berth around this one! Who knows…couldn’t be any stranger than the people who make all this plastic and set it free into the world. At the end of the day, I could not make up my mind which I thought provided the definitive view of this project? I think some of the more successful arrangements look good in their contexts, but also provide some information on what individual elements have been brought together to create this “whole” experience. After I felt I had enough pictures and the thought of a shower was sounding good. I picked up my stuff and headed home.

The trees are just budding out and this past week took a significant turn towards the green. I’m still on the lookout for migrating birds that come into our area. I often wonder about the Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf I had the distinct pleasure of observing and photographing out here a few weeks a go. I wonder where in the world it flew off to? I was just alerted by WordPress that this week is my seventh anniversary of blogging with them! For all the people who have dropped by and sampled something from the Falls of the Ohio State Park through this riverblog…I give my heartfelt thanks! I hope to continue out here for a bit longer still. This is the Artist at Exit 0 signing off for now.

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Easter Day Odds and Ends

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, plastic, public art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Bob Hill, Chiel Kuijl, Easter, Falls of the Ohio, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flotsam and jetsam, found materials, holiday junk, lost purse, material culture, nature, odds and ends, photography, plastic Easter basket, plastic egg, sense of place, Southern Indiana Living Magazine, Tasmanian Devil plush toy on March 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Today is Easter and close enough to month’s end to post an article of little things that weren’t quite strong enough to be posts unto themselves. Since almost all of our holidays have a significant material culture connection to them…it’s “natural” that I would find some of the remains here at the Falls of the Ohio. Just looking at recent images, here are a few such holiday related objects and images to ponder.

Crushed and mix among all the other debris is the remains of what was probably a child’s Easter basket. Although a novel item, I can remember in “my day”, the colorful wooden baskets worked just as well as the plastic ones, but without the long-term ramifications. Interestingly, this plastic basket “mimics” the texture of an actual wooden basket. Here are a couple of “egg-related” images to enjoy.

I certainly would be very afraid of the giant American Robin that laid this large blue egg! This is how it appeared when I first encountered it on the driftwood pile. This picture is from last year and I eventually used it for an all-blue colored assemblage. This egg does not come apart and was made to be purely decorative. One more egg picture to go and here it is.

Two views of the extremely rare and transient bird, Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf, interacting with a found plastic egg. I photographed this bird investigating/playing? with this bright yellow plastic egg with a Sponge Bob Squarepants design on it. I’m certain the egg once contained Easter candy in it, but now that it’s empty it becomes a candidate for the worldwide junk pile. To see more Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf images please see my previous post. People ask me all the time…”Al, have you ever found anything of real value?” Usually, I reply that I’m waiting for that solid gold ingot to wash up here…but I’m not holding my breath on that one! Recently, however, I did come across something that had great value for someone and here it is.

Walking along the riverbank in the eastern section of the park…I spied a soggy and muddy purse at the water’s edge. Investigating further, I could see that there was a wallet and checkbook inside and so I opened up the wallet to see if the owner’s name could be found. As it turns out, this person’s credit cards, insurance cards, driver’s license, etc…were all still there. I took the muddy purse home and called the person whom it belongs to and she was thrilled that her purse had turned up somewhere. She had given it up for lost after someone had broken into her home a week before and took the purse along with a few other electronic items. The thief who broke into and entered her home only took the seven dollars in cash she had and then threw the purse into the river. The elderly woman whose purse this is was most anxious to get back the family photos she kept in her wallet. Included among them were precious black and white photos of her own parents that could not be replaced. Since the owner lived in Southern Indiana we met the following day at my place of work in New Albany and I gave her property back to her. That certainly was my good deed for that day. Here’s another lost and found item I’m posting just for fun. First, here’s how this object appeared as I came across it.

On first blush…I recoiled slightly because I associated the brown fur with a dead animal. I have found several dead deer out here this year and if this was that…I wanted nothing to do with it. Looking more closely and since few animals are this uniformly brown I could make out that it was synthetic fur and not the real thing. So, I reached down and lifted the mystery object from its sand, mud, and wood chip debris matrix to reveal…

…this good size plush toy of the Tasmanian Devil (aka “Taz”). I guess he was waiting to ambush any unsuspecting prey like me that came across its path. Years a go, I found a much smaller Tasmanian Devil and posted about that one too, but this one was truly “trophy size”. And now, to introduce someone who actually knows something about the history of Tasmania.

This is Chiel Kuijl who is visiting from the Netherlands and is at the time of this writing the current Artist at Residence at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky. I ran into him the day the Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf was spotted out at the Falls. Chiel is creating a site specific work at Bernheim using rope to create an elevated space that people can explore. He needed some interesting pieces of wood for his installation and the Falls of the Ohio State Park is a great place for that. I have had the chance to interact a little bit more with Chiel so far and look forward to his finished project and hanging out with him more. Oh, Tasmania was visited early on by Dutch sailors who help put it onto the world’s map. Holland has a great seafaring tradition and I wouldn’t doubt that some of Chiel’s skill with ropes and knots is a part of that heritage. One more artist to talk about before closing…

The current issue of Southern Indiana Living features an article about me…the Artist at Exit 0 written by good friend and retired Courier-Journal columnist Bob Hill. Bob now in his “retirement” also runs Hidden Hills nursery where unusual and rare plants and trees are offered for sale. Every once in a while, Bob will invite artists to place projects at Hidden Hills which is what I will do in late May. The day we went out to see something about the world I like to explore it is was about twenty degrees or so and an earlier attempt at a photo shoot was thwarted by snow and extreme cold. Here is the link for the article should anyone care to check that out…Artist at Exit 0 magazine article. This issue is good for one more month and I have had a lot of fun with this and have been gratified by the response from friends and family through Facebook. The actual article begins on page 22 and the link allows you to turn the pages of the magazine which is cool too. Well, there you have it…my odds and ends post to conclude March 2016. Spring is starting out warm and promising and I look forward to many more new adventures on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. See you then!

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Riverbank Projects on a Grey Morning

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, found materials, Found objects, lost and found, lost sandals, Louisville, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River flooding, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art and the environment, artist at exit 0, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, flotsam and jetsam, found objects, Genius loci, nature, Ohio River, photography, plastic bottles, plastic color spectrum, plastic pollution, sense of place, spirit of a place, walking along the riverbank on March 13, 2016| 8 Comments »

The river has finally given us a reprieve from the high waters of the past month. I got an early start from my home in Louisville and crossed the Second Street Bridge on my way to the Falls of the Ohio. Today, I decided to do something a little different and wandered the eastern bank of the Ohio River on the Indiana side which technically is not in the Falls of the Ohio State Park proper. I just kept walking and walking and had no trouble filling my collecting bags with potential art materials. Overall, it would turn out to be a good day and I managed a couple of modest projects which are the subject of this post.

I walked as far east as I could without feeling like I was wandering onto private property. I figured if someone were to challenge me, they probably wouldn’t object to me picking up the plastic and river-polished Styrofoam that soon filled up my bags. As it turned out, I didn’t encounter a person all day long. It could be that hiking along a muddy riverbank isn’t most people’s cup of tea, but that’s just speculation on my part! I did come to one spot that afforded a nice view of Louisville’s skyline. To take these pictures, I stood in what was once a creek that originally fed into the river. That must have been some time ago, however, because the view behind me is somewhat industrial. Now it’s a spot where the water backs up when the river is high. Everywhere I wandered I found lots of junk mixed into a driftwood and ground up tree bark matrix. Here are a few of the items I found that were a bit more interesting.

Here is a picture of miniature plastic river corn poking out among the woody debris. There’s something about finding plastic plants out here that still provokes me. I picked this corny cluster up and into the collecting bag it went to ultimately join the other fake food items that I have assembled over the years.

And now for a toy figure that probably represents a disk jockey character complete with over sized jewelry and a microphone. I don’t recognize this character and it occurs to me that I’m now hopelessly out of synch with cartoon popular culture. My sense is that programs come and go so quickly now that the plastic crap these shows spawn far exceeds the actual life of the shows themselves.

Moving closer to the railroad bridge that I like to work around…I found this realistic toy lion. I think this is an example of how you can develop “a six sense” for finding stuff, because this lion was the same color as the wood chips and debris it was mixed into. Stuff that is neon colored like many plastic items are makes them relatively hard to miss. Let me show you what I mean.

Here’s my latest color spectrum arrangement made from found plastic. I gathered these components up along my walk on the riverbank just east of the park. I found a place that was relatively sheltered by the wind that had just picked up after my arrival. Today, I found a bit more purple than I usually come across.

Most of the plastic items in this assemblage are bottles of various sorts. This time, I did add a few “humorous” toy finds like the plastic frog and rubber duck wearing sun glasses. Since I still had a few hours to devote to today’s walk…I decided to venture further west and into the park to see what changes the river had made and to make one other piece I had in mind.

After filling my bag up with plastic bottles, I then switched to collecting lost flip-flops. In a relatively short amount of time I had picked up enough of these cheap sandals of varying sizes, colors, and designs to make something with. Since this is spring and we certainly have had our share of rain…it stands to reason that flowers would soon follow. I began my arrangement by taking the larger flip-flops and using them as the base. Gradually, I worked towards the center overlaying and stacking the smaller sandals that a child would wear. The result was something that I called a “Chrysanthemum” in my plastic-addled brain.

I did enjoy having a little bit more of the riverbank to explore than I have had this past month. We still have lots of potential for rain and high water. I think on my next trip out here I will explore what the high river has deposited in the western section of the park. I wonder if my ball collection is still around or did that eventually get reclaimed by the river? I guess I will need to wait until next weekend to find out. For now, here is one last image from this trip out at the Falls of the Ohio.

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A Leap Day Pile of Balls

Posted in Absurd, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, deer skull, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, repurposed materials, sense of place, unusual collection, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, deer skull, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flotsam and jetsam, Genius loci, material culture, nature, nature and culture, Ohio River, photography, plastic, plastic in the water, sense of place, site specific art, Toy Balls, unusual collection on March 6, 2016| 2 Comments »

It was Leap Day, February 29 when I went back out to the Falls of the Ohio State Park. For the third consecutive week the Ohio River has been high and all my usual spots are underwater. This post is being written a week later and the river is still covering most of my spots along the riverbank. For the past month, I have been active mainly in the western section of the park.

In the western area of the Falls, the riverbank rises to greet a sliver of woods. Standing on the top most level along the bank, this latest high water we are experiencing is about 8 to 12 feet below your feet, but in most places the river directly butts up to the bank and so there are few “beaches” to stand on and explore. It is during these moments that you can most directly see and feel how a high river can upset and erode the riverbank. I imagine that over time, the river will keep getting wider as the trees are undermined by the waters. As I was searching for new sites and materials to work with…I decided to walk a bit more in the woods than I usually do. Right now is a good time to do this before the vines and mosquitoes make it more difficult and unpleasant.

As I was walking along the muddy paths I couldn’t help noticing how heavy the deer traffic was in this area. Their tracks were everywhere and almost on cue, I came across five antler-less whitetail deer that were moving away from me near the tree line. I liked this little area mostly because I came across small stands of bamboo-like river cane. The old timers say that river cane used to be more plentiful and once helped to define the area more than it does now. Walking along, I saw something white laying on its side and it turned out to be a deer skull from a small doe. In the early days of my Artist at Exit 0 project, it was uncommon to come across deer tracks and years passed before I actually saw one out here. All that has changed now. This is the third deer skull I have found in the park in the last two years. Their presence throughout the Falls of the Ohio has visibly increased which is probably not a good thing for such a small park as this one.

I decided to leave the skull behind for someone else to discover. Finding a suitable tree along the path, I mounted the skull on the knobby remains of a branch to mark this area as being particularly deer favored. It was just a short hike from here to reach the river’s high edge again.

Eventually, I did find a hundred yard or so stretch of muddy bank that I could access and walk around. It was located in a sheltered area where this was a slight bend in the river. The prevailing currents and wind had pushed a large amount of debris against the bank and most of it consisted of wood and bark bits with the now expected plastic garbage mixed in for good measure. I immediately began to find “stuff” and here are a few pictures of my “prized” finds.

Here is something for my Fake Food Collection…a small, plastic drumstick. Over the years, I have found a few of this exact plastic poultry leg and so this is not exactly a unique find. Note the teeth marks probably from the family dog?

Although the spring peepers are starting to be heard in our area…this one will never make a sound.

I now have an impressive collection of found toy hammers and mallets and they are all made of plastic. I need to take a photo of that collection and post it which is another in a line of weirdly specific things I have found out here.

Here are two more “Smiley Faces” that are the latest ones I have found out here. The larger is a volleyball and I’m not sure what the smaller one was intended for? I haven’t looked at it again since I dropped it into the old collecting bag. As I was exploring, what I couldn’t help but notice along this particular stretch of riverbank was how common toy balls of all sizes and sports that I was finding. I decided to pick up all the ones I could access and make a collection of them all. Here is that image.

So, what is your sport? In this motley collection of forty plus river-found balls we have American footballs, soccer balls, basketballs (of course since this is major basketball country), golf balls, tennis balls, playground balls, Styrofoam balls, softballs, a plastic bowling ball, a volleyball, several ball pit balls, and couple of novelty balls, etc… Of course, balls are the perfect floating object since they are round and roll easily and since they are usually inflated with air they are buoyant as well. As the day was starting to get late and I had found all the balls in the area that I could reach…it was time to start for home. I’m looking forward to the river dropping down and the temperatures to begin to rise. Soon the spring bird migration will be passing through and I’m hopeful of seeing a few Rose-breasted grosbeaks and maybe a Scarlet Tanager or two. One more image of my made on the spot ball collection looking back on an interesting day at the Falls of the Ohio.

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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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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Archive for the ‘lost and found’ Category

Rare Birds and the Month of July

May in Kentuckiana

Plastic Arrangement in Black and White

Late March Petrochemical Color Composition

Easter Day Odds and Ends

Riverbank Projects on a Grey Morning

A Leap Day Pile of Balls

Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

Two Arrangements in Plastic

First Snow of 2016

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