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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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On Katinka’s Tour

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, material culture, nature photography, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged Art, art and nature, artificial and natural, artist at exit 0, barge rope, driftwood, ecostory, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, Genius loci, junk in the river, material culture, nature story, photography, sense of place, Styrofoam art, tree growing through a wheel, willow tree on June 30, 2016| 4 Comments »

I had an unexpected rendezvous at the Falls of the Ohio recently. I caught up with my friend Katinka as she was taking a walk along the riverbank. I have always loved the way she looks when the sun strikes her face at just the right angle and creates this wonderful glow about her. We are meeting by chance which is often the best way to go. The two of us decide to walk together for a while. She had an earlier start today than I did so I asked if she had seen anything on this beautiful morning that struck her as being memorable in some way? Immediately Katinka answered that there was a tree near the water that impressed her as being particularly heroic. Together we sought out the spot where it was rooted.

We don’t have to go far and as it turns out and I’m already familiar with this tree. It’s a Black Willow and it is growing through the metal holes of an old discarded car wheel. I noticed this one…and another similar tree growing through a tire in the western end of the park a couple of years a go. I can understand why Katinka thinks this tree is “heroic” as it tries to thrive while wearing a metal and rubber yoke. I keep wondering what will happen next as this tree moves through time? Will the limbs growing through the holes eventually get pinched off? Will the willow send out roots all around this wheel eventually elevating it off the ground? How is this tree going to accommodate this wheel?

I have documented this tree through a few seasons and so this was a good time to take a few early summer shots. The tree seemed healthy and was certainly taller than before. I noticed that after this year’s high water subsided, that the tree had shifted a bit as the tire settled into the earth. Linking the tire with the tree is an unusual union of the natural and artificial and Katinka agreed. She said that she couldn’t help but feel that the tree got the worst end of this bargain…but we shall see.

Katinka said she detected a theme developing and that she had witnessed other “unusual pairings”. She asked me to hold out my hand and on my palm, Katinka placed the soft, hollow, plastic body of a toy animal that was missing its head. She found this on the riverbank too. Interestingly, nature seems to find a way to express life and in this case, a small seed landed in the dirt that had filled the toy’s hollow body and had sprouted! This qualifies as a very small niche indeed.

I placed the plant/toy on the sand and then I wished it well. Simple as that. I followed Katinka to our next spot. She had seen something earlier and wanted to look at it again in case it was something that could fit the evolving theme of her tour of the Falls of the Ohio. After a little searching around the vegetation around the willows, we found what we were looking for laying on the surface of the sand.

Once upon a time, this was an object that required hook fasteners to adjust. In this found instance, the hooks from the cockle burr and other hardy plants have hitched a ride and their seedlings are using the man-made fabric for a substrate to germinate upon. Perhaps as the plant continues to thrive and grow, it can jump off its host by spreading its roots far and wide? I mentioned to Katinka that I knew a place that demonstrated a similar kind of union occurring between something artificial and natural and would she like to see that? It was just a short distance along the water line and the sound of the river filled up any need for conversation. The river can be satisfying in that way.

Reaching the spot, we could see a golden-yellow, tangled mess that was once a part of a large, tight, barge cable. At some point, the cable was cut and floated down the river and was now stuck joining two separate willow trees together. The yellow arc was swaying in the slight breeze. Subsequent floods and even birds picking on this large rope for nesting material have continued the process of fraying it. I thought there was something very art-like in the way this cable called attention to itself and the space around it. In places at the Falls of the Ohio you can find other trees that have snagged lengths of this synthetic barge cable in their exposed root systems and limbs. Here is another example of this as a river wave plays jump rope.

Both Katinka and I agreed that the snagged barge ropes offered us vivid examples of how the stuff we make interacts with the rest of the world. While we were looking at the ropes, a new protagonist arrived via a muddy Ohio River wave. A large plastic gasoline container became the latest piece of junk to become beached at the Falls of the Ohio.

So far, Katinka and I had spent the morning together looking at examples of how nature was dealing with us through our surrogates…the trash we create and discard. We both agreed that perhaps we should spend the rest of our time together just looking at the beauty that is nature. Although the Falls of the Ohio State Park is a rather small and some would add a rather limited place…I can usually find something that seems extraordinary and perfect in its own way.

Moving to the nearest decaying log I found a small and completely unfamiliar fungus seemingly bubbling up from the wood itself. All fungi have an important role to play and gives rise to the idea that nature’s creations are rarely superfluous like our own tend to be. I qualify that with a “rarely” since it seems to Katinka and I that what seems troubling about man is that out of synch quality with nature that we now seem to embody and in fact embrace. What was nature thinking about when it gave rise to us? The fungi have a purpose…what is ours, perhaps to usher in the next great period in the history of life?

One more small and seemingly miraculous discovery before calling it quits for the day. I spotted something moving over the shallow, water-covered fossil beds and a quick flash of the hand produced this freshly hatched terrapin. Katinka checked it out before releasing back to the same spot where I had found it. I hope it doesn’t run into any herons or raccoons that would make short work of it. This was a nice way to end the day! As my friend and I parted I watched Katinka as she immersed herself in a bed of violet flowering vines. Until next time 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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Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, birding, birds and birding, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, photography, Plastic art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sense of place, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, birds, Chiel Kuijl, driftwood, ecostory, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Genius loci, Kentucky, Louisville, nature, photography, plastic, rare animals, sense of place, Spring bird migration, Styrofoam on March 24, 2016| 5 Comments »

Went out to the river, but to tell you the truth…I thought it would be too high. Just a couple of days earlier, the Ohio River was once again over its normal banks. Every year is different and this year the tail end of our winter was marked by warmth and high water. Although the riverbank was muddy, I was happy to be able to walk around. I’m having a show at a friend’s place in May and I was on the lookout for more washed up materials. As it played out, this first official day of Spring would be a more memorable one than I had first anticipated.

One of the reasons that this can be an interesting time of the year at the Falls of the Ohio is the annual Spring migration of neotropical birds. I have been known to set my collecting bag aside and just hit the woods on the look out for migrating birds. The first time you see a male Scarlet Tanager or a Rose-breasted Grosbeak will make a bird watcher out of a lot of people. This past weekend, which is still a bit early for the usual migrants…I came across something totally unexpected that I couldn’t identify at first. I didn’t get many pictures, but what I have is here. If you have never seen (or much less heard of) Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf, (Aviana indeterminus)…you wouldn’t be alone. Hammerkopf translated into English is hammerhead and that description seems to fit. Heisenberg’s bird is about the size of an American Robin. Among the features that stand out the most are its massive red bill and the petal-like feathers found at the base of its neck. The wings can be brown or white and it has been known to have a crest, but some individuals have been seen that don’t have this feature. There is no consensus as to its overall population, but a few individuals seem to make the news each year. This bird is an enigma and it seems to prefer things that way.

The individual I came across is a second year male. Looking at the info there is on this species did say that the unusual ruff of feathers around its neck could turn bright red as the bird matured and was ready for the breeding season. What little there is in the scientific literature suggests that this is a highly variable species that can be found anywhere at any time. With this bird, you really can’t pin down where it originates and it doesn’t seem to have a “normal range”. It seems to be a very uncommon bird with a world-wide distribution.

This individual kept surprising me. I almost felt that it “changed” the more I observed it. By that I mean at first I found it by the mud and then it changed habitat by going into the trees. I lost track of it for a short while, but rediscovered it at the water’s edge. From there, it moved back under the willow trees where I eventually lost it for good. I saw it use its large bill to delicately probe the mud and hammer through a driftwood log and in both cases wasn’t sure of what it was eating if indeed it found anything to begin with? I just saw enough of this bird to pique my interest, but I have had bird sightings that have lasted mere seconds that were satisfying enough to last a lifetime.

While I was out exploring the Falls environment, I did come across another individual who can vouch for me that this strange bird was indeed out here. I struck up a conversation with him and as it turns out he is also an artist. His name is Chiel Kuijl and he is from the Netherlands. He has a residency at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky where he is working on a unique outdoor rope environment. He was looking for select, interesting pieces of wood that he could incorporate into his art project and the Falls of the Ohio are a perfect place to do this. Talking with Chiel, one of the things he is enjoying most are the new and unfamiliar birds he is encountering in this country. I asked if he had ever seen a Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf before and he said that he hadn’t and it was really unlike what he was accustomed to back home. I am sure I will see Chiel again, but what of the hammerkopf?

I don’t often make an appeal to the larger blogging world, but if anyone should happen to see this bird or something similar to it…I hope that you will post pictures of it. It might make an interesting research project to see where in the world this species will turn up and what it might have to say about those particular places where it is found. For now, I will leave it here and hope you will follow along the next time I am hiking at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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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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On Plastic River

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, material culture, Photograpy, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art in nature, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, nature, photography, plastic, plastic recycling, process art, public art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific art, the golden hour, the plastic issue on February 23, 2016| 7 Comments »

Last Saturday was a nearly 70 degree day and the sun was shining. I couldn’t wait to get to the Falls of the Ohio to do a little exploring and maybe make something. I was totally surprised to find that the Ohio River was up again despite our area not receiving much in the way of rain during the week. The warmer temperatures must be melting what snow is still on the ground in the upstream sections of the Ohio River Valley? That’s my theory and for the moment I will stick with that. As with the previous weekend, the areas in the park that I more routinely work in were all underwater. So, like the previous weekend I hiked out to the western section of the park where the riverbank is higher. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find much out here since I picked up a lot of waste plastic to make my last rainbow arrangement. Boy was I wrong. Waiting for me along the waterline was a “fresh” selection of polyvinyl chloride for the picking. Perhaps because for the moment I have been fixated artistically with this material, but to my eye it seems our “plastic problem” is getting worse.

In quick order I was able to stuff the two collecting bags I brought with me to capacity as well as fill a found plastic toboggan with even more plastic. That was just the start.

I could have kept going and going, but soon realized that I was also running out of light. I chided myself under my breath for getting a late start on this day. I had other home duties that needed my attention. If I was going to do anything with this latest batch of plastic finds it had better be soon. I had also intended to check out the project I had made the previous week, but it was further down the riverbank. Once I got going on this assemblage, I forgot all about that earlier piece. It was now a race against the quickly setting sun.

I dragged all the plastic junk I had collected to a place on the riverbank that I thought had pictorial possibilities. I then sorted this mess into various color groups. Using the two plastic milk crates I had found and a wooden plank I created a shelf-like surface that was fairly level where I could arrange my latest collection of finds.

Here’s a process photo of my piece about half way through along with my shadow. This plastic arrangement was situated in a space between the high riverbank and a large log that floated into position here last year. And now for some “finished” views.

I finished laying the last piece of plastic down just in time for the “Golden Hour” when for a brief moment the light has this incredible color. This time of day reminds me of some of Maxfield Parrish’s paintings who must have also been fond of this effect of light. Here are a few details of the junk I used for my arrangement.

In the green section you can see the Tug Boat that I found on my last trip. This time I picked it up and carried it with me and incorporated it into this piece. Other notable finds include a light orange, Winnie the Pooh, “Tigger” character head that was used for collecting candy on Halloween night. That’s a little different from the usual jack-o-lantern head. I also found a bright red plastic fish that is also a sand mold for child’s play. The majority, however, are bottles for detergents and various petroleum products.

Soon, the light begins to fade. In this shot you can get a better sense of why I selected this location. My arrangement is protected by these wonderful tree roots that add a bit of animation to the scene. What you can also see is that the tree to the left doesn’t have long to stand before the river and erosion will change this part of the riverbank and knock this tree down.

The sun was setting and I had a long walk ahead of me and after basking in a bit of color it was time to call it a day. On the walk back to my vehicle, I wondered what I was getting out of this activity? As an exercise in building an awareness of the plastic issue…well, by this point everybody who cares to know does. And the folks that would prefer this to be out of sight and out of mind, well, there is that too and you wonder what it would take to convince anyone of the urgency of this problem? I went through several rationales, but it wasn’t until I got home and downloaded my pictures to my computer that I decided there was something in the perverse beauty of man who stands in contrast to the rest of nature that I find compelling. I will muse on this for a while, but for now…so long 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 ‘repurposed materials’ Category

Rare Birds and the Month of July

On Katinka’s Tour

May in Kentuckiana

Plastic Arrangement in Black and White

Late March Petrochemical Color Composition

Easter Day Odds and Ends

Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf

Riverbank Projects on a Grey Morning

A Leap Day Pile of Balls

On Plastic River

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