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Archive for the ‘watershed’ Category

The Ohio River continues to rise and as this year draws to a close…it will go down as either our wettest ever or close to the top.  At the time of this writing,  we are more than twenty inches above normal rainfall.  During a usual year, we can expect a bit more than forty inches of precipitation and we are past the sixty inches mark with a forecast calling for even more heavy downpours.  I believe we set the old mark in 2004 for most rain in our Kentuckiana area.  Okay, so all this is a bit boring I admit, however, it sets the stage for the day and this adventure at the Falls of the Ohio.

Because the river was rising, the normal shoreline at the Falls was underwater which in turn forced me to higher ground.  That means today’s adventure took place on the large pile of driftwood that formed during last spring’s flooding.  The large wooden mound is interlaced with all kinds of debris that floated in with the bloated river which acts as an attraction for scavengers such as myself and an acquaintance I came across today who goes by the nickname “Pig Boy”.  Yes, he bears some resemblance to a pig, but as he told me…he came by this unflattering handle because he enjoys getting dirty especially by the river.  “Piggie” and I have this in common and so we get along famously.  It had been a while since I saw him last and I asked if anything was new?  That’s when he related to me a recent nightmare he experienced and as he spoke the following images came to my mind and through the miracle of digital means I present to it to you for your perusal. I began to hear bits of the old “Twilight Zone” theme in my brain.

As the dream begins, Pig Boy found himself on the very driftwood mountain we were standing upon.  He was there because over the months this mound shifts and falls under its own weight and decomposition revealing new “treasures” originally captured by the river.  As Pig Boy explained it…he was just in his own head space checking out the variety of packaging that was intermixed with all the wood.  That’s when the most curious thing happened when he looked up.

All kinds of plastic bottles and containers were emerging from the driftwood pile and moving towards him as if he were a plastic magnet.  Pig Boy was transfixed and unable to move as this plastic wave began to close in on him.

More and more plastic kept coming towards him and before long it started to build up around his body which made moving or running away even harder.

Soon the bottles reached his waist and were piling up even more!  Not all of these bottles were empty and some of them contained river water and the backwash of old soft drinks and who knows what else? By this time in Piggie’s dream he was truly getting alarmed and he remembers this voice telling him that he needed to get out of there!

Before all these plastic bottles could completely overwhelm him… Pig Boy remembers letting out a scream because he was just so frightened.  The feeling  of helplessness was upon him and he forced himself to wake up which he did in a cold sweat.  He recalls the immense feeling of relief when he realized that this had all been a bad dream.  I could feel the claustrophobic sense of being engulfed by all this plastic as my friend relayed his story to me and I became scared as well.

And so I asked my friend after such a bad dream…what was he doing back here?  He replied that he didn’t have a good answer and that he is compelled to come out here for the thrill of discovery or something like that.  Pig Boy can’t help himself.  Every once in a while, you can actually find something useful out here that can be recycled in some way and besides it’s nice to be out in nature.  After a few more minutes and various pleasantries…we parted wishing the other well and happy hunting.  I stood there on the driftwood by myself and looked up at the river which to my imagination seemed higher in the short amount of time I had been out there.  My mind then turned to something I had read about how our oceans are now becoming increasingly filled with plastic garbage that coagulates into large masses and probably will never go away.  That thought was in turn interrupted by a drop of rain that fell on my cheek and I decided it was time to go home too.  I’ll bet we establish that new rainfall record before the end of the year.  Stay dry everybody.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I’m at the Falls of the Ohio again because the Ohio River has been priming my subconscious all week with the sound of running water.  I am also very close to finishing the piece I’m making for an invitational art exhibit I’m participating in which revolves around the issue of coal and mountain top removal.  This is a topic of some importance in Kentucky.  We have a love/hate relationship with coal.  On the one hand it is an energy resource we have in some abundance and it does provide much-needed jobs and revenue, however, the toll it takes on everything it touches is also well documented. Over the last few posts you have seen some of the process I’ve been involved with the coal the Ohio River has deposited at the Falls.  Today I’m gathering the last of the coal I need for my art.

The spring floods of 2011 washed a lot of coal into the park.  My “usual” Falls of the Ohio project touches upon another important issue which is the quality of our number one vanishing resource… fresh, clean water.  As is the case with most aspects of the environment, few issues stand in isolation from all the other problems out there.  Considerable overlapping is the norm which makes all these problems that much more complex and challenging.

The piece I’m making for this invitational exhibit isn’t intended to be a didactic one.  I’m not sure that screaming at people ultimately does much good when it comes to something as complicated as the coal issue.  I also don’t pretend to have the answers.  I’m hoping that the artwork I’m making with this coal will operate effectively just under the surface of people’s imaginations where it might linger long enough to resonate.  We will see.  In the meantime, I’ve “enjoyed” working with this material.  I have decided that it does have an odd beauty of its own especially when the river tumbles away its rough edges.  I have found simply creating small mounds of coal whether in old car tires or just by itself to be a reflective act.

After playing with the coal for a few hours, I decided it was time to do something else.  It has been a while since I last baited a hook and went fishing.  I got the idea when I came across a long willow branch that a beaver had gnawed all the bark off for food.  Looking around the riverbank, I also found a hook, lead sinkers, and enough waste fishing line to outfit my found pole.  Fishing floats are something I find in abundance and always have a few in my collecting bag. I also pick up the lead weights that other fishermen lose because this metal doesn’t need to be out here either.  Looking under rocks, I scrounged up enough insect larvae to use for bait.  Now I was ready to throw my line in the water…and wait.

I guess about twenty minutes passed before I got my first nibble.  I lost my bait several times before I was successful in hooking a fish.  The sight of my float going completely under the water was a thrilling one!

This fish didn’t give me much of a fight.  After a few runs in different directions I could feel it tire and lifted it out of the water. To be honest, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what species this was, but I know that I have never seen anything quite like it here before.  It’s coloration was unusual with its light blue body and bright red tail.

It’s eyes are large and I surmised that it usually lives in the depths of the river where light rarely reaches it.  I thought it had some similarities to the sauger which is a walleye relative and also found here, but it lacked the sharp teeth that the sauger has.  It’s gill covers or operculums were metallic and reminded me of the bottoms of aluminum cans that the river washes into the park.

I quickly took a few more photographs and then released this fish safely back into the river.  When I got home I tried to look up some information about my catch, but couldn’t find much about it.  Apparently, Rafinesque and LeSueur, two early naturalists who described many of the fish found in the Ohio River and Falls of the Ohio, were mum on this subject which was disappointing.  Until I can locate better reference material I decided to just call it something descriptive like the Red-tailed Goggle-eye.  Of course, any information that any of you out there might have would be welcomed! Seeing this fish I also had another more disturbing thought.  What if this is evolution in action and the continued degradation of the environment is shaping new species from older ones that can deal with the new reality?  Evolve or die. This brought the question of man as an agent of evolutionary change to mind since we are culpable for many of the changes going on in the larger world.  Well for now, I’ll just sleep on it and see what turns up tomorrow.  See you by the water!

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It’s been a hot, hot summer at the Falls of the Ohio.  For me, the best time to be out here is as early in the morning as possible.  One advantage in doing this is you are more likely to see birds and other wildlife.  I found this Indigo Bunting singing away from the topmost branch of this tree.  For as open and publicly trampled as this park is…witnessing such small and intimate moments where man and nature freely mix keeps me coming back for more.

This adventure occurred during my last visit to the park and early in the month.  As it turned out, it was a memorable visit.  I’ll go ahead and tell you that I twisted my right ankle which isn’t big news or a particularly rare occurrence.  But this time, I was sure it was broken and I limped out of the park with the aid of my trusty walking stick.  I was walking along in the sand and my ankle just collapsed.  That’s all it took.  All my early sports injuries have left me with a weak ankle.  The x-rays didn’t reveal a fracture, but I was surprised by the bone spurs and bone deterioration.  As I write this three weeks later, I’m still limping along but without the aid of crutches so I guess I’m on the mend.  Returning to that day and before the sprain,  I revisited the sand sunken tire from previous posts and replaced the coal that was removed from it and then moved on.

I created a little friend to keep me company and to help me with the day’s projects.  He’s made with Styrofoam, sticks, plastic, and a little bit of coal for his eyes.  I have used the coal that washes up here for as long as I have been doing this particular body of work which is approaching eight years now.  As a material, its relevance has always been appreciated by me.  Like the corals and brachiopods that have left their traces in the limestone at the Falls…these black rocks also speak of ancient life, but coal has a different and contemporary purpose that is won at great cost.  Walking along the eastern section of the park, I explored and gathered the coal I found interspersed among the sand and driftwood.  My little helper tagged along and soon we filled the hole in a second found tire.

I noticed after I selected this tire that it had once been painted white.  I have seen this before where people of thrift have used cast off tires for garden planters.  On this one, most of the paint has worn off and the river has given this tire a unique patina.  For the Little Man and myself, this would just be the beginning of our play with the found coal out here.

Among the other found objects I scavenge along the beach are empty pint bottles made from glass and plastic.  I like them when I find them with their labels soaked off by the river and their bottle caps in place.  A little more than a year a go I shared a river adventure with video artist Julia Oldham and we marked the day by putting notes and colorful fishing floats in other empty bottles.  I sometimes think of those bottles and wonder if anyone has ever found one of our notes?  In all my years here, I have never found a note in a bottle and by now I have looked at thousands of bottles.  Some of my friends at Living Lands and Waters report finding notes in bottles all the time and I’m guessing that this happens more along the Mississippi River than it does the Ohio River?  For me, finding a note in a bottle will happen when it’s supposed to…I just hope that it’s written content will be interesting!

You have just seen a few of the bottles I have filled with coal.  The white flecks you see mixed into the coal are bits and pieces of mostly zebra mussel shells which is another unwanted element in this river.  Filling these bottles with coal is meditative for me.  Usually, there is still a little bit of whiskey or alcohol in the bottom of these bottles that scents the coal inside its container.  Coal is such a complex subject in our region that it is enough to drive one to drink.  On one side it is a common and available form of energy, but the costs to the land, people, and larger environment are extreme.  Having visited the coal fields in eastern Kentucky, it is certainly plain that the people whose land and mountains have been mined out from under them haven’t benefited to the extent that you would think since poverty and despair are far too common.

I’m going to continue to explore coal as a material and social issue with the help of some new friends.  I have been invited by a group of mostly younger Kentucky artists to participate in an exhibition to be held sometime in the near future.  A blog has been set up called Project Reclamation and if you would like to follow along…just click on the link on my Blog Roll on the right column. I will keep you posted.  To close, here is one other bottle or carbon storage image I photographed with a found rubber duck behind the transparent bottle.  I look forward to going back out to the Falls of the Ohio as soon as my ankle fully heals.

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The huge mound of recently deposited driftwood under the railroad bridge is both an obstacle and a magnet.  It’s not easy to walk over and it helps to have a good walking stick to help maintain your balance.  The rewards for persevering are a nice elevated view of the Louisville skyline and the potential for finding interesting junk intermingled with the wood.

Once you move over or around this mound you enter the margins of the willow forest and you can see what the full force of the river can do to a landscape.  These black willows are tenacious and their roots hold on.  Here’s another image of a remarkable willow tree and its root mass.  This one wears a trophy from the flood like a victory pennant.

From all the cars in the parking lot, I’m guessing the fishing must be pretty good today.  I stepped by some earlier evidence in the form of this longnose gar skull.  I think this one was caught by rod and reel.  But, I have seen the remains of hundreds of these fish before stranded and killed by a retreating river.  Longnose gars are routinely in the 3 to 4 feet range in length.  The jaws are lined with small needle-like teeth for catching and holding on to smaller fish.  The gar is a surface fish and floats in on its quarry like a piece of driftwood very stealthily before surprising it with a quick flash of the jaws.

Moving to the river, I decided to watch what the fishermen were doing and catching.  In about twenty minutes, I watched two large catfish being landed.  Here are two guys that have this down.  Using multiple poles, they cast both worms and cut shad into the swiftly moving waters.  Snags and lost tackle are common since this part of the river is also full of rocks and boulders.

I was inspired by the scene and left them this contour drawing in the sand before moving on.

Earlier I had seen a flock of grackles by the water flowing under the bridge.  They were catching some food item here that I wasn’t able to figure out what it was…perhaps dead minnows?

The grackles were working the river just like the fishermen were.  I left them a drawing in the sand as well made with the tip of my walking stick.  The sand today is moist and firm which holds a fine line better than usual.

Of course, while I’m walking along I’m filling my collecting bag with the odds and ends that make up the rest of this riverblog.  Some of it is just stuff that I will attempt to make art with and the rest are souvenirs of our material culture.  Once the bag was full, I turned and headed up the bank to get under some trees and out of the sun.  I then made this sand butterfly to mark the spot where I turned for the willows.

I have set up a new outdoor studio near the margins of the driftwood mound.  Instead of a plank to sit on, I’m using this large wooden bridge or railroad tie.  I haven’t found the large sections of Styrofoam that mark last season, but what I can find I’ve gathered at this spot.  I did make a figure on this day which extended this adventure, but I will wait until next time before unveiling it to you.  Thanks for tagging along…you have been good company!

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June began all bare bones in the aftermath of our minor flooding and now at month’s end it passes overgrown with vines.  Near the tainter gates, a massive raft of driftwood lies intertwined with the landscape.  We haven’t seen such a wooden mound in many years.  June had some odd and compelling images and here are a few more before we turn the page.

The willow trees are the heroes here tenaciously clinging to the sand and clay.  This taunts the Ohio River which sends high water and a battering ram of floating logs their way every once in a while.

Willow wood is flexible and the sustained high water’s flow is echoed in the shape of these trees.  I imagine the river as an artist shaping its garden at the Falls of the Ohio.  There’s a bit of that bonsai- look if you can get past the larger scale.

The willows’ branches do their part in snagging some of the flotsam and jetsam floating loosely in the retreating waters.  Branches become decorated with plastic bags, fraying barge cables, driftwood, the occasional dead deer, refrigerators, fishing line, and whatever is present in the Ohio River.

Here plastic sheeting has been caught and stretched some length across these trees.  It looked like something some installation artist might attempt.  I also came across a “nylon crinoid”…in actuality, an unraveling barge cable that made me think of the extinct sea lilies of ancient oceans and in fossils which are pages in the book of life.

Walking across the sand I came across this unusual view which gave me the idea for the title of this post.  Very nonchalantly, this mostly destroyed hippopotamus was standing its ground.  I’ve read somewhere in a book that the name “hippopotamus” means “river horse” in some African language?

Another view, but this one from the top.

I made another Styrofoam figure on this day.  I imagine this as being a figure of some exotic Spanish dancer with fancy combs in her hair.  I won’t say this is the best figure I’ve ever made, but it’s also not the worst.  It just happens to be how things turned out when I picked this group of materials and objects to make something with at that particular moment.

Now for a full length view.  That pink radiating thing is made of plastic and helps to add other visual interest.

Before leaving for home on this day.  I watched a couple of guys using a throw net to catch shad to use for fishing bait.  I couldn’t help but see them in the context of the Ohio River which was so many more feet above their heads.  Here we are at the bottom of the valley.

Since I’ve used the book metaphor a few times in this post…it’s fitting that I end with this picture taken on this day.  It’s really a small plastic photo album whose transparent sleeves were full of coal gravel and water.  Until next time…

 

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Squirt guns and water pistols are among the many toys that the Ohio River washes ashore at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  To see more of this collection…click on the Squirt Gun Collection in my Pages section to the right.  Thanks artistatexit0.

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