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Mud Duck

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2011| 5 Comments »

I ventured out over the weekend to see what I could see.  The Ohio River is still very high, but receding.  All along the riverbank you can see how far the water rose because large logs and plastic trash reveal the high water marks.  Once all this water reaches its “normal” level…there will be a huge amount of trash left behind to challenge any clean-up attempts.  Today I wasn’t out looking for garbage, but other signs of life.  Perhaps it is a bit early to look for migrating birds although I can feel that is just a short time away and getting closer.  Already species like the Red-winged Blackbird are staking out nesting territories.  Species we see all the year round like the Northern Cardinal were singing at the tops of their lungs and I enjoyed standing under one bright red bird that was doing just that!

This particular bird has many rivals.  I could hear many other cardinals singing across the landscape.  I could almost imagine the spaces they were occupying by the volume of their singing…every hundred meters or so it seemed a different bird was calling out.  I wondered how the poor females went about the task of choosing which one to form a pair with?  I did see a few Yellow-rumped Warblers which are usually the first warblers to arrive and among the last to leave.  The other warblers will be winging their way here shortly…or at least I hope they stop here ever so briefly on their way northward.  Over the last two or three years it seems there are more changes to the environs around the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  I know that there are many other better choices all along the Ohio River than here. It seems we have decided to put people’s needs first over what birds might need.  During my wanderings, I did see my first butterfly and here it is…

…this is the Spring Azure butterfly.  Here it is mid March and this tiny ( no wider across than my thumb nail) bright blue-violet butterfly was visiting plants.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t obtain an image of that beautiful blue coloring, but with this species, the underside or ventral wings are more helpful in identifying it.  Since there were no dark marks on the dorsal wing tips, this helped me determine that this butterfly was the male of the species.  I was really excited to see this little wonder and thought that this could be a really uncommon species…but it wasn’t.  It’s fairly common, widespread, and has many morphs.  Formerly, this species was scientifically named Celastrina argiolus, but is now called Celastrina landon. With this species, there is still much taxonomic hair-splitting to do.  It’s just that variable over a large area of North America.

As I walked along the riverbank, I came across a few familiar signs now mostly underwater.  Here’s what happens when you throw “Caution” to the water…you get this view.  And here’s one that partly hides a “No Trespassing” sign near a storm sewer that feeds into the river.

As I moved along where the faint hearted fear to tread, I was hoping that my slogging through the mud and muck would be rewarded.  Earlier I had seen a few Blue-winged teal which is a small species of duck and so I was hoping to see another small, but rare duck that sometimes mixes in with these teal as they migrate.  Today was my lucky day and here are three images of the very unusual  Mud Duck.  This bird likes to really get into the underbrush particularly during floods to take advantage of feeding areas usually restricted to other ducks during normal river levels.  It is a very oily duck and highly buoyant on the water and as a consequence…it almost never dives beneath the surface of the river.

The price of observing this unusual fowl was foul boots.  I became so coated with mud from my knees down that I didn’t worry about my foot gear until I was ready to go home.  This mud is particularly sticky and each rise of the foot is accompanied by a sucking sound.  You definitely need to tie your laces tight, otherwise you risk stepping right out of your shoe or boot.  I stopped every so often to clean the bottoms of my boots because the weight of the mud made each step an additional burden.

So far, I haven’t seen any of the large pieces of Styrofoam that found temporary refuge in my plein air studio.  They are probably half way to the Mississippi River by now.  It may take another week for the water to fully retreat and then it will be even more time before the riverbank dries out some.  I’ll close for now with another flood view.  Over the years, these sycamore trees have been a good marker for high water.

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Ohio River High

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , on March 8, 2011| 10 Comments »

I’m looking forward to new adventures at the Falls of the Ohio and once the river subsides I’ll be able to do that.  What I knew so well over the past year is just that…the past.  Floods always rearrange the riverbank around here and a new supply of “stuff” will be deposited…unfortunately.

There is so much trash and debris floating around here it is a bit amazing and depressing.  Just for the record, most of the trash is not coming from my home city of Louisville.  It’s not that we are any better than anyone else, but the fact is this garbage has traveled with the river from as far north as Pittsburgh and other venues north of us.  The Falls of the Ohio seems to catch-all particularly at this very spot.

This was the view under the railroad bridge on Sunday.  A tremendous amount of debris has been concentrated here and once the water recedes there will be mountains of driftwood with garbage mingled throughout.  You can see how daunting a task it would be to try to remove what can be recycled here from what should decompose naturally.  The prevailing currents and wind push all this floating debris against the Falls of the Ohio until the next bout of high water adds or subtracts it from here.

Yes, it’s very colorful, but completely unwanted.  Most of what you can see here seems to be plastic drinking bottles.  I guess it’s much easier to throw them in the river than to deposit them in some recycling bin!  Once the river backs down, I imagine I will find all sorts of “treasures”.  A good friend of mine who also happens to be an artist has a difficult time reconciling why I spend so much time down here making art from Styrofoam, etc… I tell him that there are more important issues in the world than what occurs in the art world and that I’m worried about the planet.  Making something creative from this junk is my way of calling attention to the problem.  It’s not just the objects, but the context that all this is presented in that’s more crucial.  It’s not a gallery or museum but rather the very space of life itself.

As far as floods go…this has been a fairly gentle one for us, thus far.  More water up north will translate to an increase in the river level again.  We may go through this a few more times over the next couple of months.  There were record snow falls this year and all the melt water from that has not been reckoned with yet.  The staircase beyond the sign is a common way that people access the riverbank.  Now let’s check out the stairs themselves.

I walked along to all my favorite spots…or at least the ones I could reach.  My boots were a wet and muddy mess, but it felt good being outside.  I saw a few of the early migrating birds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Rufous-sided Towhees, Belted Kingfishers, and yes the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which I believe to be the same woodpecker that I have spotted visiting the same sweetgum tree for the last four years.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good day for bird photography, but maybe next time!

This is a view near the Interpretive Center.  The rising water does so centimeter by centimeter in very undramatic fashion.  It can be very disarming, however, to feel your feet getting wet when just a few minutes before the ground you were standing on was dry. 

I found this to be an interesting and melancholy image.  Usually, picnic tables conjure up pleasant images of family outings, but the river obviously is disinterested.  This table has its legs up in the air like some dead cartoon animal.

Just a typical view of bottomland when the river rises.  I think the water accentuates the vertical elements in this composition and causes me to notice the trees more.

As I was walking along the Woodland Trail, I came across this storm sewer that services the town of Clarksville.  Why it’s exactly here next to park land is debatable?  While I was walking by I was startled by an increase in the volume of water gushing from this location.  This is another aspect of flooding.  So many of our small towns and cities need serious overhauls to their aging sewer systems and the increasing volumes of water exposes their weaknesses. 

The water here smelled like the combined scents of every laundry detergent known to mankind all mingled together.  There was also a “nice” foam head along the margins.

For now, I haven’t been able to do as much with my project on site.  At home and in my new studio room, I have been sifting through images and bits of plastic that I have accumulated over time and wondering what to do with it all?  I’ll end this post with one more recent flood image.  In a small back water area, I came across this flock of Canada geese who seemed to be like me…just waiting for the river to return to normalcy.

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Beyond the Pail

Posted in Absurd, collections, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 19, 2011| 13 Comments »

I debated what to call or title this post and I had other ideas which included “Bowled Over” and “Kicking the Bucket”, but decided “Beyond the Pail” would work.  I chose my post’s title because as word play, it also suggested something beyond acceptable standards perhaps even implying complicity.  When you see the images perhaps they will “speak” to this?  As it goes, this is a relatively focused set of images.  They were all taken within a few hours of one another in a relatively short expanse of riverbank at the Falls of the Ohio.  I call this area the “Elephants’ Graveyard of Plastic” because it seems a lot of plastic washes up here to die and the scattered remains are hard to not notice.  This post features common containers and I’ve organized them by color.  And now, without further ado.

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Ohio Valley Sphinx

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , on February 13, 2011| 9 Comments »

What a day!  I was able to take my time and explore the western section of the park.  It had been a few months since I was last there and the change in location felt good.  As I passed the creek that defines the western most limit of the park’s Woodland Trail, I came across this nice view.  I like how the water has terraced the riverbank in particular.

The fine mud has left a record of the rising and falling water.  Plus there was something reverential to me in the pose of the fisherman.  Making himself humble in the face of this peaceful nature?  Who care’s if you catch a fish when it feels this good to be outside and breathing.

Crossing over, I soon came across a section of the riverbank that is the proverbial elephants’ graveyard for plastic.  I took many photographs of it all.  That’s stuff for a future post wahoo!  Yes, I found a lot of interesting stuff, but I also heard some birdsong as well.  In a month or so, it will be spring migration time for neotropical birds which is one of my favorite moments at the Falls.  I did come across some relics from earlier figures I made and it’s interesting to see how they weathered.  The one with the pinkish lips was last year’s butterfly guide.

How much of our history is based on fragments?  And because it is incomplete, filling in the blanks is guess-work.  Like many people around the world, our family was watching events unfold in Egypt and we were cheering for the people and their struggle for self-determination.  But our own notions of democracy were borrowed from the ancient Greeks, whose armless marble statues were once complete and probably painted as well.  American democracy is what evolved here and heaven knows it’s still a work in progress.  Whatever happens in Egypt will be their interpretation and will take in to account their civilization’s already long history.  I’m happy that the transition is happening now fairly peacefully.

Today, I found two plastic tanks on the riverbank!  Finding one would be unusual so what do you call it when you find more than one?  Just coincidence I suppose?

It’s to the Egyptian peoples’ credit that the military didn’t make this deadlier than it was.  It’s a measure of civilization on how well we take care of the least fortunate among us.  This is a quality that I find eroding in my own country where decisions are often made based on a bottom line.  Walking along, I found another little toy.  Over the years, I have found a handful of these.

Coming across this little plastic cowboy shooting his pistol made me wonder what it might be like if we were the ones experiencing a popular revolution?  With America awash in weapons, I shudder at the thought. 

I rested at this spot along my walk and ate my granola bars.  My left foot was aching a bit from walking along such uneven surfaces.  I wonder how old these trees were before the beaver got to them and what’s that yellow sandstone looking form?  Walking over to it, it’s a large hunk of some kind of expandable foam used for insulation?  There’s more than Styrofoam floating out here. 

It took some effort to roll this to a place where I could work on it.  Partially water-logged, it was really heavy on one side and that kept it from standing upright on the sloping bank of the river.  Over and over I reminded myself to be careful not to hurt my back.  Recently, I did tweak it a bit by being out of position when I lifted.  Anyway, in honor of recent events and because this block gave me the idea…here is the Ohio Valley Sphinx in several images.

I left my sphinx near the river where it could watch that other attribute of civilization wash ashore from far afield.  Good luck to the Egyptians and all the people of that region desiring a more humane life. I ended my last post by finding a plastic duck…and here is another!  What are the chances of that?  It was an old pull toy and is now missing its wheels.

Naturally, this artificial duck went into another collecting bag to join the decoy found on the last expedition to the Falls of the Ohio.

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Faux Duck and Plastic Bread

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2011| 9 Comments »

The clock read ten minutes after four, otherwise, I wouldn’t have remembered what time it was when I began my last exploration of the river.  This is one of the world’s largest clocks and once was the pride of the Colgate toothpaste factory in Clarksville, Indiana which is just a quarter-mile at most from the entrance to the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  The company moved to Mexico and now the building is for sale.  The clock’s fate is uncertain as are all the jobs that were lost when the company relocated to another country.  The fire truck happened to be going by at the moment I took this image.

After parking my vehicle, I descended down the wooden staircase and into the driftwood field that was deposited last summer.  It has been a gray and melancholic winter.  I noticed that the river was higher now than during my last foray and my heart lifted a bit knowing that there would be fresh river booty to find!  I was correct and this post has a few of the objects and sights I came across during the hour and half I spent here.

I have observed that many people who visit here never venture far from these stairs.  They may go down to the water’s edge to take a look, skip a stone, or write their names in the shifting sands.  I came across the word “people” written in the sand and recorded the image before the advancing waves erased it. 

After so many years of walking this beach, I’m amazed at how much of the same kinds of stuff I find out here.  This was one of five basketballs I came across.  I wish I had a dollar for every one I’ve seen at the Falls.  The river was playing with this one and its waters would float it to a different location and then cast it back upon the shore before licking it back into the water again.  Here’s another ball I found.  It’s small and looks similar to a plastic representation of a ball of yarn?  I like the contrast between the ball and the willow rootlets that captured it.

I’m always finding dolls and doll parts.  On this expedition I found three dolls.  Here’s a picture of one of them as I found it.  I’m not certain if this is a Barbie doll or a knock off of one?  Doesn’t matter, what catches my eye here is the arrangement of doll and driftwood.  Because there isn’t a lot of color involved…it would be easy to overlook this while walking.

More flamboyant is this cloth and plastic artificial “plant” embedded in the sand.  Now this was easy to find because it’s winter and the eyes are starved for color.  I wonder what these plastic “nuts” are supposed to be?

Now comes the part where this post’s title originates.  For the last couple of weeks the Falls has been home to many Mallard ducks.  I was walking along the shoreline when from a distance I spotted this next to a large log.

My first reaction is why is this duck  just sitting there and not trying to get away?  Is it hurt or sick?  Did it narrowly escape the talons of one of the local Peregrine falcons?  It took me a moment before I realized that it wasn’t real!

This is the first decoy that I have come across out here and thought photographing it next to tracks left by webbed feet was appropriate.  The indigenous people of this country were the first (as far as we know) to make decoys to lure prey species closer to the hunter.  There is an aspect to some of my Styrofoam sculptures that takes a page from them.  I want people to come closer and check out what I’m doing and come away with a greater awareness of what’s happening to the environment around them.

My subconscious must be scanning this stuff as I move along, because I don’t know how I found this!  It’s a plastic slice of bread or toast and not much different in shape or color to the other forms that were around it.  Naturally, it went into the collecting bag and joins the other artificial food items I have found out here over the many years.

After hanging out at the water’s edge, I cut up the beach to my open air studio in the willows.  The so-called “Choir” grouping had been smashed to bits since my last visit.  All the figures have been beheaded, but things weren’t a total loss.  I did find this to cheer me up!

Some other creative soul left me this next to the plank I sit on when I make my Styrofoam sculptures.  This small figure looks surprised like it’s caught in mid slip.  Perhaps there was ice and one foot flew out from under it?  All the materials were on site and I’m glad that someone else took advantage of them to make something no matter how silly.  Whenever I’m out here it’s easy for me to lose track of time, but I knew it was time to go because I was cold and getting hungry.  On the walk back to my car I took this photograph.

I call it the “Staircase to Heaven” and yes it’s a wooden set of stairs that was snagged by this willow during a flood two years a go.  I once found a refrigerator stuck in the top of a tall tree and the river put it there during another bout of high water.  The river level can surprise you and with all the snow that has fallen this winter north of here.  It’s very possible we may see high water again and soon.  This weekend, (can it be true!) it’s supposed to be sunny and warmer.  I definitely will plan another trip and maybe make something of my own from all this river junk.  Until then…

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Skippy’s Day

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 1, 2011| 7 Comments »

It’s the Falls of the Ohio and it’s nearly midwinter.  The quality of the light feels like it’s coming from banks and banks of incandescent tubes in the sky.  It doesn’t even feel like light, but more like a heavy presence more  akin to fog than photons.

There are fewer people out today.  The last of the last snow lingers on in the cool places and tomorrow it will probably be gone.  I’m trudging along the river and getting muddy.  I use the stick I brought along to test its sticky depth and tap the thickness of what ice I encounter.

Close to shore dozens of mallard ducks are dabbling in the muck.  I wonder what they are finding to eat?  Whatever it is it seems to be worth the energy expense to go after it.  The normally iridescent colors on the drakes are now subdued and await the splendor of the sunlight to reveal their gaudiness.  Watching the ducks I slip and slide in the less secure places along the riverbank.  My wife is not going to like seeing these shoes!  Once in a while, I find a good spot to rest and scrape mud off the bottoms with the edges of a stick.

I walk by familiar spots along the way to my open air studio.  I like checking out the uprooted trees and appreciate their exposed root masses like the fine subterranean sculpture they seem to me.  Seeing a tree like this is an odd sensation because you know the roots that supported and nourished this tree claimed a space in the earth that was hidden from view.  I often think of these conceptualized spaces.  There is a complete lack of greenery that lays the structural aspects of the park open for inspection.  Sometimes the driftwood feels like the bones of the river.

The sculpture group I’ve come to call the “The Choir” is still standing.  I’ve enjoyed seeing what happens to these guys.  Visitors are still playing with them and I notice small changes here and there.  As the eyes, ears, noses, and mouths fall off, the character of each personage changes.  The starkness and artificiality of my material choices contrasts with all the wood that surrounds them.  When I work in my spot, “The Choir” watches my back.  I like this recent photo of my studio spot.

The wood tells its own story.  All the sticks that wiggle, twist, and reveal character are grouped together and await their potential to be realized in just the right sculpture.  This site looks like it could be ancient.  I remember photos seen in a book about Andeevo in Russia where entire winter structures were made from the remains of mammoth skeletons covered in prepared hides.  That was life 15,000 years a go.  I can picture my site covered by a tarp and maybe I’ll try that this year if the river allows it and the opportunity presents itself.

Meet “Skippy” who is named after the glass I used for one of his ears which came from the bottom of a peanut butter jar.  I found it in the sand. The raised letters told me the brand name.  “Skippy” is also made from Styrofoam found along the way, plastic fishing bobbers, rubber, a plastic mouth guard, and various woods.  The “Choir” is visible behind the studio site.

I don’t have a good story to go along with this figure.  I did kind of imagine that Skippy was checking out the river line and looking for fresh and unusual flotsam and jetsam.

Cold, wet, and muddy Skippy entertains himself by looking for colorful or unusual artifacts such as these found on this trip.  The joy in finding is its own reward.

So many lost toys almost all of the time.  Each time I come out here I find some plastic representation of life.  I usually take a picture of the object as found and then it goes into my collecting bag.  I like that relationship between images and objects…although the years worth of objects is starting to take up serious space.

This is where I last saw Skippy.  He was standing by the snow with a willow tree framing the view behind his head.  The bright blue of a plastic drum adding a note of wondrous color in an otherwise drab riverscape.  We have a way to go before Spring and everyone I know is already sick of winter.  I’m going to try to stay positive and look for the beauty in the common place.  I wonder what the groundhog’s shadow will say?

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Frozen in Ice

Posted in Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, fresh water, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , on January 17, 2011| 6 Comments »

These are all common objects photographed at the Falls of the Ohio on a single cold day in January 2011.

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The Architect of Ice

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2011| 13 Comments »

Come along on this vicarious adventure to the Falls of the Ohio.  The seasons and river help make this a dynamic environment.  I stole a couple of hours during a very cold day to visit the park and was rewarded with a riverscape transformed by ice!

Right at the river’s edge was where I found the ice.  The driftwood, logs, and living willows looked as though clear glass had encased their forms.  I love being a witness to all the transformations that happen in this relatively small place.  It literally can change before your eyes.  Ice at the Falls is always a magical event and one that doesn’t last very long.

Ever wonder what it takes for ice like this to form?  The conditions need to be just right.  First it takes a river where the water is warmer than the air around it.  The river appears to steam and fog can form.  The warmer water vapors come in contact with the colder trees and rocks, condenses, and turns to ice as the temperatures fall below freezing.  You also need one other element and that’s an engineer or architect to direct the action.

If you look closely you can see the architect of this scene in the center of this low growing willow tree.  Here he is seen from a different angle.

The little fellow I was observing was a true artist and had such mastery over his materials.  All he had to do was simply point and wave his arms around and an ice fog would cover the trees and other structures within reach of the river.  In this way he painted the Falls in ice…take a look.  Here he is again doing his thing along the riverbank.

Judging from the slightly mischievous smile, he seems to be enjoying his creations.  I followed along and recorded him in action.  He never slowed down and moved from tree to tree in a methodical way.

The architect made ice that varied in appearance.  Some trees he thickly covered and others he decorated with frozen sausages and jellyfish hanging from the slenderest of branches.

I watched the architect will the ice into place according to an intention and plan known only to him.  I suppose if one were to study this…there  probably are some mathematical equations that can explain all this?

But when it’s this pretty and magical…who cares what the numbers are doing?  It’s nature exhaling and gathering itself before the next big breath restores and awakens the land.  As I left the architect to finish doing his work.  I walked alone admiring what he had left behind.  To end, here are three images my camera recorded along the river.  The last one in particular was lucky…and ducky!

Bottoms up everyone, till next time!

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The Orange Curtain

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , on January 8, 2011| 6 Comments »

Looking up at me with that reassuring smile, I thought it a good omen on my first foray of the new year.  It’s winter and so it’s cold, but the sun is bright and clear and strong shadows are everywhere.  I’m bundled up and so it’s okay as I venture forth along my spot on the Ohio River.

Today the landscape and it’s living inhabitants are asleep or away.  I see only a few seagulls and ducks along the river and that’s all.  With the leaves now fallen, the polystyrene sculptures that mark my studio area are more visible.  The very bright whiteness of the Styrofoam can be seen from a distance and it helps these pieces are vertical elements too.  This contrasts sharply with Spring and Summer where you could walk within fifteen yards of this spot and not see these figures for the trees.

The “choir” is still all here, which is what I expected.  People are fair weather animals and when it’s cold, fewer are willing to explore this landscape on foot.  I admit to liking the existential “feeling” I perceive on these winter walks.  There is a clarity that I appreciate not only in the light, but within my mind too.  Winter does a good job with its cold in prioritizing things and the relative lack of sound makes it easier to hear my own thoughts. 

My found materials are as I left them at my open air studio.  I decide to sit on the plank (a little cool on the buns!) and make my first figure or 2011.

Looking around I pick up two smallish pieces of Styrofoam and constructed this delicate figure.  Here he is before the addition of found glass ears.  The mouth is also glass and I like how the river and sand polish this material as it grinds away the sharp edges.  Once completed, I look for an interesting backdrop to create the images that represent this day.

I featured this on a late post from last year.  I’m fascinated by this frayed barge rope or cable that has been snagged by this willow tree.  I like how it is slowly unraveling and the bright orange nylon? fibers add that unnaturalistic element that seems so out-of-place in this environment. 

As I move this little figure around this orange fiber outburst I wonder if the beauty I’m perceiving from the color is somehow out-of-place and perverse?  I begin the year wondering if what I’m also doing out here is aestheticizing garbage as much as I am calling attention to our relationship with nature?  In my defense, I tell myself that I’m just an artist doing what artists have always done…which is react to materials and processes and selectively ordering things in the ways that artists do.  What do you think?

When I last saw this frayed cable, it was helping to form this interesting drift that was a combination of wind, snow, sand, and ice.  I posed a different figure around that formation.  Now all the snow is gone for the moment, but surely we will receive more before season’s end.  Oh, I forgot about the small shoe sole that I tied onto my figure.  Since it came from a child’s shoe…it is meant loosely to be an attribute of innocence.  I have done this with other figures in the past.

When I could no longer push the cold out of my mind and finger tips, I decided to leave this figure by its orange curtain.  I moved him into a position that suggests he’s taking shelter from the elements.  On my next outing to the Falls, I will stop by and see how he’s doing…that is if he’s still out here and hasn’t walked away.

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Post #223, So long 2010

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, nature, Ohio River, Originality, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2010| 4 Comments »

 

Another year’s worth of fresh water has passed under our bridges.  It’s been an eventful year in many ways and to recap things sounds like more energy than I currently have to expend on something at this moment. I guess I can’t party like I used to!  So, here I am limping my way across the finish line with Post number 223.

I love the way ice changes the riverscape at the Falls.  Over the years, I have been a lucky witness to some interesting ice formations.  On this last trip, however, the ice present seemed to cover surfaces in a glassy coating.  I decided to take a walk along the river side of the Woodland Trail.  It was cold, but the wind was calm which helped things a lot.  I made this figure that I named “Acorn Eyes” from stuff out of my collecting bag and objects that I found along the way.  The snow and ice formed a lighter background that actually helped objects to stand out more clearly.

Here’s a colorful shoe followed by a child’s playground ball I came across. 

One natural object that caught my eye was this ice-covered milkweed pod.  This plant is very important in the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly.

By the sycamore trees I found a spot I like that has these wonderful exposed roots.  You could still see the mottled greens and whites of the tree bark through the thin coating of ice that covered them.  I decided to take a few pictures here with my newest Styrofoam figure.

With as much pressure as is regularly put upon this landscape, I marvel that there are any trees here at all.  The river is a powerful force washing away most everything that stands before it.  Subtler still, but also very effective is the role ice plays in breaking apart the fossil rock.  Water seeps into the smallest cracks and as the temperature drops below freezing, the water expands into ice, further wedging apart the gaps.  In this way rock is split and broken down. 

Walking along the trees that border the river, you can see the remains of logs that were washed into here during previous floods and eventually became stranded.  As they decay, they release their nutrients back into the environment.  I like looking for the patterns formed by the various layers deposited. 

I am also looking forward to whatever the new year brings.  May it be a positive and peaceful one for all.  I know the river will keep life interesting for me…and I hope I can do likewise for you through this blog.  See you next year!

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