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Digital Driftwood: Part III, Roots and All

Posted in Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature photography, Ohio River, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 19, 2012| 9 Comments »

One last driftwood post before hopefully moving on to the current conditions at the Falls of the Ohio.  As my knee heals, I have been sifting through my own digital photographs.  Sitting at home, I have been spared the relentless heat that has defined our summer.  Artist at Exit 0, however, does miss bearing witness to life along the river and can’t wait to get back!  I thought I would end this driftwood series by looking at wood that is more organically expressive.  As mentioned in a previous post, the river processes a tree by removing its branches into increasingly smaller segments.  With all the broken down wood present at the Falls of the Ohio State Park, it can be a challenge to find a piece that implies movement.  Here are a few larger examples that I find to be especially sculptural.

I come across many unique pieces of wood in the park that feel as satisfying to me as many abstract sculptures made by man.  Walking around a  particularly nice piece of driftwood, I am rewarded with different viewpoints that remind me that the object I am regarding share a common space.  Here’s a different image of the same dramatic driftwood log and the experience in perception changes as you move around the wood.  I notice not only the arc of branches and roots, but the spaces between forms as well.

Here’s another nice piece that I came across this year and it also has many nice sculptural qualities.  I love the “S” curve snake-like motion implied in this driftwood.

When I see a piece of wood this twisted and convoluted I’m reminded that nature is the true sculptor here.  Doing the shaping are water, wind, and the life force of the tree itself whose innate “intention” is to live.

It’s hard for me to imagine that works of art were considered ” superior” to the “corruptness” of nature.  Fortunately, the philosophy of aesthetics is ever-changing, but still could use additional tweaking from what strictly enhances the experiences of our lives to embracing a better appreciation of life in all its forms.  Even when we use ourselves as the egotistical measure of all things we should be starting to understand by now that the quality of our very lives and that of our descendants depends upon the overall quality of the natural environment.

When I’m at the river I try to be as present in the moment as much as I can, however, my mind does day-dream a lot about the relationships between art, man, and nature.  I believe as my friend Ellen Dissanayake has eloquently expressed through her well-researched books that art has survival value otherwise our species would not have spent thousands of years involved in this activity.  My reaction is to try to use my creativity in this special place using the materials I find on hand to try to further this conversation along.  The sculptures I make to tell my little stories are combinations of natural and artificial materials.  The river-eroded Styrofoam I use for my figurative work is usually so static in form that to enliven it requires finding rootlets and branches that the river hasn’t fully removed all sense of gesture and movement.  These pieces become the arms and legs of my characters that help imply animation.  The picture above shows roots I collected while walking over the driftwood that the river did not completely break apart.

It’s interesting how often trees enter the picture.  One nice touch in the opening ceremony of the recently completed London Olympics was the large tree image that brought nature into the festivities.  Key to the life of a tree are the roots that help bring water and nutrients to its tissues.  By growing and burrowing through the soil the root system helps buttress the tree and holds the soil together.  This is especially important on a riverbank.  Since driftwood is essentially deadwood…I didn’t want to wrap up this post on such a dismal note.  At the Falls of the Ohio live many tenacious trees and here are images of a few of them that have weathered many a storm, flood, and the activities of man.

Before the idea of climate change and global warming there was already enough change occurring through the busyness of our species.  I remember looking at satellite imagery of the Amazon region a few years a go and being able to see the tell-tale grid system of logging roads and farms supplanting the jungle.  Deforestation is continuing at an even greater rate now.  Our trees need our love and we need the free services they provide.  Now for one last look at another resilient tree at the Falls of the Ohio.

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Digital Driftwood: Part II, Wood Mix

Posted in Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature photography, Ohio River, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

Welcome to my second look at wood as expressed at the Falls of the Ohio.  The first post concentrated more on the river and water as an agent of change moving material through the landscape.  This post looks more closely at the driftwood that gets stranded in this southern Indiana park.  I once curated an exhibition at the Louisville Visual Art Association entitled “River Sticks” where all the artworks were made from locally procured driftwood.  The majority of these works of art utilized raw, natural sources, but there is also wood in the mix of a slightly different character.

There is a wooden staircase placed here by the Department of Natural Resources (which maintains this state park) that is a popular access way onto the riverbank and fossil rocks.  It is not unusual during bouts of flooding to see part of this staircase submerged by the Ohio River.  During those moments, all you can do is look from a distance or visit the Interpretive Center.

Over time this staircase has needed frequent repairs as it gets battered by floating logs and tree trunks.  Only after the water has drained away can you walk among the driftwood and see what else made from wood has been left high and dry.

Here’s a dramatic shot of a different staircase that has floated down the river and has been snagged by a willow tree.  Objects stranded in trees bear witness to how high the river rose.

I frequently find wooden pallets and they get snagged in the trees too.  This one is a little different in that it appears the tree is growing through and around this artificial form. Over time, the pallet will fall apart. Perhaps wood is wood, but one can’t help noticing how much milled and processed wood is a part of the mix.  Here are a few other images showing this contrast between natural and man-shaped wood.

Sometimes it seems like there are enough planed boards at the Falls to build a small house. Fishermen and visitors use these planks to span muddy areas and puddles to keep their shoes clean and dry.  All this wood is a disposable resource?  I’ve seen visitors taking lumber out and I’ve done the same.  I like using river-worn cut boards as bases for the Styrofoam sculptures I choose to keep.  To me, even the smallest board tells a story of our relationship to trees and nature.  I tell myself that someday I’ll make some rustic piece of furniture from this wood.  The same processes that break a tree down in the river…do a similar “service” to disposed of wooden furniture.

Here’s a piece of a child’s crib or bed that I found at the river’s edge.

This is one of many table legs and turned pieces I’ve come across.  Sometimes I pick them up and take them home.  I’ve used them on rare occasions in my art, but I have also given many pieces to artist friends to see what they could make of them.  I suppose I could make an homage to  Louise Nevelson’s sculptures, but would prefer to create something more personal.  Nevertheless, I have picked up a few wooden artifacts from the river and here’s how they look collectively.

I left the toes of my shoes sneaking a peak for scale!  Here’s some of the hand-turned and machine-made table legs, chair staves, and spindles I’ve saved.  These artifacts do break down over time and eventually revert back to nature.  Now for a detail.

Here’s a slightly different collection of wooden artifacts I’ve saved over the years.  Some things I recognize and others require pondering to figure them out.

The objects on the right are mostly finials from fence posts.  The circular objects with the holes in them…I’m not sure how those were originally used?  Could they be part of a float system for barge ropes or are they wooden wheels for toys…could they be lids for some kinds of containers?  In this grouping I have also included a small rustic picture frame I found as well as a whittled stick I could tell someone cut and scored and is perhaps the most minimal artifact in my altered wood collection.  I find many board fragments, but I kept one small piece because someone named “Bill” tried routing his name in the wood and drilled a few holes that became bigger as the wood softened and aged from exposure to water.  This piece of wood exhibits several ways we leave our mark on nature.

I also have a sign collection that can be seen in my Pages section.  Most all of them are also made from wood and were once part of this unusual driftwood mix that came from the Ohio River.  I’m thinking of putting my found “Bill” board in that collection because it too is a sign of the times as we lose our ability and desire to write in cursive.  Very few schools in my area even bother to teach this skill anymore.

Not all the driftwood in the river consists of logs, branches, and roots.  Much of my riverblog bears witness to the extent our handiwork pervades the larger environment.  What I see happening in my part of the world I assume is transitioning  simultaneously across the surface of the planet.  We have added our own distinctiveness to the overall material aggregate which challenges our now quaint notions of what is “purely natural”.  I was right when I mentioned in an earlier post that the month of July would find a way to be memorable.  It’s official now, July was our hottest month ever in what is shaping up to be our hottest year ever.  Much of our country is experiencing an intense drought and so I end with a picture of what it looks like when there is too much water.

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Digital Driftwood: Expressions in Wood from the Falls of the Ohio, Part I

Posted in Art, art and environment, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature photography, Ohio River, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2012| 7 Comments »

I have been doing some armchair beach combing while my knee recovers and I have selected images to help tell the story of wood at the Falls of the Ohio.  Since this wood was also once alive, it is also the story of trees along the Ohio Valley. When I went through my last three year’s worth of images…I found enough material for a few “wooden posts”.  Hence, this is Part I of what may prove to be a couple of stories.  The Falls of the Ohio is well-known for its driftwood deposits and many people (and some animals when I come to think about it) like to take advantage of this resource.  I have met many a person in pursuit of a select piece of wood.  What folks do with this wood is as variable as the person.  Some people like to use driftwood to enhance garden displays, some are inspired to make art from the found wood, and others may choose to burn this wood during cold winter nights.  I’ve seen Pileated Woodpeckers make short work of decayed tree trunks in their pursuit of carpenter ants and beetle larvae.   And once I found a Mallard duck’s nest inside a hollow log.  I’ve seen many beautiful fungi helping to convert this wood to humus. Driftwood is plentiful in the park and what usually happens is the Ohio River during its high water moods moves the old wood out and lays down a fresh layer that originates up-stream from us.  Sometimes I wonder if the wood I’m seeing is also part of the riverbank eroding in the northeast? These days, riverine ecosystems are under so many pressures. Since the Falls environment is continually being rearranged by nature, no two years are exactly the same and the riverbank is ever-changing.  It is interesting to me to think about these very images as digital driftwood that flows from the rivulet of data coming from my computer and tumbled into the ocean of info that is the internet.

A prolonged rainy system upriver from us or a sudden flash flood caused by short, but intense rain storms causes the Ohio River to rise quickly.  “New” wood flows over the top of the dam and soon mixes with wood already in the park.

Prevailing winds and river currents push the driftwood which can form large rafts and mats against the Indiana side of the Ohio River.  If you notice, there aren’t many trees here with intact branches.  The river breaks each tree down and keeps subdividing it into ever smaller and straighter pieces.  The wood chips in the water are the remains of tree bark that have been ground off by continually rolling against the other tree trunks in the waves.  Of course, there is other detritus much of it man-made also in the water. Eventually the water recedes and strands the wood in interesting formations that are a part of a new and rearranged environment.  Here are a few images made while the river retreats.

Not all the driftwood gets corralled by long logs that organize the smaller ones into neat parallel rows that fill in beach space like pieces to a puzzle.  It’s fascinating to get a sense of the water by how the wood was laid down.  Sometimes there is just so much material that immense mounds are formed by the interlocking wood.  Exploring these mounds can be tricky because the wood is still settling and caution is recommended.  At the moment, there is a sizable amount of driftwood under the railroad bridge which is also closest to the dam.  Here are a few images of all these logs after the water has drained away.

The small creek that flows into the Ohio River gets backed up with logs during high water.  When the water recedes and deposits the wood, it covers the contours of the creek’s banks.  Here are a few more recent images.

In the above image you can see how the trees that line this bank are beginning to be exposed by the river.  I believe there is just so much additional water and energy in play now because of climate change that the days of gentle rains will be fewer and farther between one another.  In our area, many residents have noticed that our storms seem to be fiercer and becoming more event worthy.  The main beneficiary of this are the television weather forecasters who love to hype the weather anyway.  I believe I will end here for now, but will continue later because there is more to say about this driftwood.  To close, I will end with another large and sculptural mound of driftwood.  Have a great week and month everybody!!

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Plush Portfolio

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature photography, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2012| 18 Comments »

I confess that I like the word “plush”.  In my mind it evokes a sense of luxury and well-being.  I roll the word around my mouth like a fine wine and I also get overtones of comfort, safety, warmth, softness, and abundance.  I feel similarly about the word “verdant”, but that’s the subject of another post.  Returning to “plush”…it is also a word used to describe a variety of soft, sewn toys usually made with polyester fibers.  This includes most of the teddy bears and stuffed animals that one is likely to come across today.  In my own family, plush toys are and were among our most beloved and trusted playthings and misplacing or losing one was like losing a member of the family itself.  Which brings me to this portfolio of images taken with found plush toys in situ that I stumbled upon at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  Each toy was probably loved by some child and if these images hold any power it probably derives from feelings of separation and loss.  I’m also interested in them as aspects of our material culture that manifest themselves as more junk for the environment to try to absorb.  All these plush toys were deposited by the Ohio River and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some of these objects probably floated hundreds of miles to reach my camera’s lens.  Here are some of my “favorite” images in this “genre” and I’ll start with the object I’m holding in the first picture.

Once upon a time this was an impressive toy.  I think this is “Pink” from the famous Pink Panther cartoon series.  Lifting it from the mud took some effort because its stuffing has been replaced with impacted mud.  This toy had effectively merged with its muddy matrix.

I also found this cute plush dinosaur embedded in the mud.  Later I set him up on a log and took his portrait in the context of where he was found.  He’s a friendly tyrannosaur photographed against a fossil landscape that predates the real dinosaurs by millions of years.

This was an unusual find.  Later I identified this as a  child’s slipper featuring a Rug-rats character, but it fits my plush category nevertheless!  Now let’s look at some teddy bears.

This was once a member of the Care Bear clan.  Here’s a different kind of bear minus his stuffing.

I came across this unfortunate bear in the sand.  Somehow he lost all his stuffing and was essentially just a hollow skin which I salvaged and used as a costume for one of my Styrofoam figures I later entitled “Cubby”.

This bear was still in the process of arriving by water when I came across him.  The black background is coal gravel and dust while the white dots are the remains of broken clam shells.  I’m sure you will recognize my next find.

My eldest son has the exact sized Pooh bear that he has treasured all his life.  Even though he’s now a teenager, I noticed that Pooh still occupies a prominent place in his room.  Here’s one last bear and its a little different and may not “technically” qualify as a plush toy.  Nevertheless, I found it appealing and I include it with the others.

Let’s try a change of pace and include a few rather small stuffed toy objects I’ve found over the last couple of years.

This looks to be some kind of flamingo head.

I’m not really sure what this might represent…it could be a moon or a vegetable?

Here’s another object I had trouble identifying.  I like how the cockle burrs are hitching a ride on its knitted surface.  Here are few toys that either are or were inspired by Beanie Babies.

The purple reindeer was photographed against the blackness of coal dust and gravel.

I believe this is another beanie baby-styled toy in the form of a purple cow?

I believe this tiny plush toy is meant to represent a killer whale.  Here’s an image that came out of the floods from two years a go.

This guy is clearly an elephant.  When I was a child I had a Dumbo character soft animal toy.

Another hard for me to identify figure, but the destroyed aluminum can help give you a sense of how large this plush toy is.  Could this be some type of Halloween toy?

Over the years I have found many surprises buried in the sand.  When I spotted the above object…I had no idea what it was until I lifted it up.  This is what I found.  I remember staring at the blue eye!

To my surprise emerged the form of this friendly and shaggy green parrot.  I placed him upon a branch for others to find and moved on.  We are getting close to being done!  Here are a few more found figures.

A sharp-eyed observer identified this as the Magician character from the Frosty the Snowman cartoon.  Makes sense to me because I found him right after Christmas of that year.  Could have been some child’s gift that wasn’t properly appreciated and in to the river you go?

I don’t know why I remember this now, but I believe this figure was once used to advertise a barbecue restaurant?  Could have had additional info on the back of the shirt, but I also could be completely wrong about this.  It might simply be a birthday wish novelty.  I think you will recognize this next one.

This isn’t the original Raggedy Ann doll, but a similar conception.  I found it face down in the sand and flipped it over for this photo.

I live in a basketball crazy region, but this is the first time I’ve encountered this object.  I know it references basketball, but what else is it intended to do?  What purpose do the white cords serve?   It definitely has plush elements.

This is me standing in my beat up Falls shoes next to a found plush “dog bone”.    My dog makes short work of any plush toys she comes across.  She knows how to get her teeth around their seams and split their contents open.  This makes me wary to think that this orange bone might be a dog’s toy…but what else could it be?  The Ohio River is always presenting me with such conundrums, however, I enjoy putting on my thinking cap and trying to puzzle them out.  I hope you liked some of the images and I will leave you with this final one of the parrot in the place where I left him for others to find.

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Extreme Heat at the Falls of the Ohio

Posted in Absurd, animals, Art, art and environment, birds and birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature photography, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2012| 14 Comments »

The record warm spring we experienced in the Kentuckiana area is being followed by the extreme record heat of this summer.  Twice I have ventured out to the Falls when the thermometer had passed 100 degrees Fahrenheit or 40 on the Celsius scale.  My youngest son told me (without prompting) that he  thought this heat was evidence of global warming.  The idea that we could alter the climate in some way has reached our children’s consciousness and changed their awareness of what kind of world they will inherit.  Kids get it…why don’t politicians and business leaders do the same?  This should be a global priority because the quality of our environment makes everything else possible.  I’m at the river today to continue this role I’ve created for myself as witness/participant in this historic place.  Here’s a brief record of what I found and made on a particularly brutal day.  I’ll start with more coal flakes that I made at the water’s edge.

Walking around the park at its eastern edge, I collected the river-polished coal I came across and with these black rocks created two designs.  Because of the heat, it doesn’t take long for my clothes to start sticking to my skin.  For relief, I splash water over my face and arms. At first, I left the interior of one of the flakes open, but later decided to change it.  I did scout around for the other coal projects I had left here previously, but they were either missing or deliberately destroyed.

Here is the second design with the interior filled on the first coal flake. Why some people find my “art” to be more offensive than the trash that is ordinarily found here is puzzling to me?  Why more people don’t find all the random trash to be an eyesore and do something about that is another mystery.  My best answer is that “art” has a way of focusing and concentrating energy that stands above the ordinary.  To be noticed is not always a good survival strategy.  My work gets hammered because it sticks out and there is something in the human condition that would rather break things than fix them.

It’s still morning and I see the resident Black vulture colony is also at the river’s edge looking for dead fish or fishing bait.  There’s nothing like coming across a partially opened pack of chicken livers that some fisherman brought for catfish bait.  The flies and the vultures say thank you.  I’ve come to think of these vultures as familiars and part of me likes to believe that they even recognize me and allow me to approach a little closer than usual.

A couple of hours later and the vultures have done what I’m about to do…namely seeking shade and relief under the willow trees.  I find a few vultures standing on the ground with their wings outspread trying to catch the slimmest of breezes, but there is none today.  Reaching my stash of Styrofoam I look around and everything appears as I left it.  It’s just been too hot for most folks to want to be out here.  Rummaging around the polystyrene, I chose a few pieces and construct a new figure.  This piece has remained nameless, but if you out there in the wide world want to name it…that’s fine with me.  It’s also been too hot to think of titles and names.  He is another in a long line of absurd figures I’ve created with the collaboration of nature.  Here’s the head made from Styrofoam, coal eyes, fishing float nose, some kind of plastic piece for the mouth, and wooden ears.

As you can see from the last image…I have lots more Styrofoam to use up before our next big flood.  I began my latest figure with the body.  I came across a piece that suggested a sitting pose and so that is what I made.  Upon completion, I moved my new “friend” to various locations and tried him out in various contexts.

In the end, I decided to pose my figure in the remains of a private  outdoor party that was held out here since my last visit.  This must have been no ordinary “celebration” based on all the spray painted graffiti now on the logs and stumps surrounding their camp fire.  Take a look.

I’m more accustomed to seeing graffiti in an urban setting where tagging trash dumpsters and buildings is common place.  I’m still sorting out how I feel about coming across a scene like this?  Has anything actually been harmed…it doesn’t appear so.  When lovers cut their initials into the bark of a living tree, those cuts are there for the life of the tree.  All this spray painted wood is dead.  Still, this hardly seems like a nature loving act especially since the “artists” left their large beer bottles behind.  I think they did it because they could.  Their handiwork to my eye also lacks an aesthetic dimension, but now I’m sounding like an old-fashioned art critic.  I guess here is as good a place to say that I’m taking a hiatus from visiting the park to recover from my impending knee surgery.  I’ve been stomping about out here with a bad left knee for over a year and it hasn’t gotten better on its own.  An MRI showed two tears in my lateral and medial meniscus.  With hope, I won’t be down long and I will continue the riverblog with other stuff probably from my various collections. I’ll end this post with a small piece of plastic I found on this hot, hot day.  Since I started this post with some perceptions from a child about the environment…perhaps it is even appropriate?  It may take something akin to divine intervention to improve the condition of the world.

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River Cat and Coal Garden

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2012| 8 Comments »

The heat is on at the Falls of the Ohio.  It is looking like this will be a summer to remember.  In the Louisville area, we have already set all time record highs for the month of June.  Yesterday, it was 105 degrees here or around 40 degrees Celsius in the rest of the world.  Coupled with the heat is a lack of rain.  So, when it’s this miserable outside…who in their right mind would be walking around under this crazy sun?  That would be me!  I’m here at the river’s edge and imagining that I’m one of the dozens of herons I can see fishing from their spots by the fossil rocks.  I take my shoes off and cool my feet in the river.  This provides some respite.  It occurs to me that perhaps these herons aren’t fishing after all, but have discovered that they can beat the heat by wading in the water?

All the coal flake designs from the last post are gone.  In places, I can see how someone has dragged their foot deliberately across the patterns to erase them.  Why a person would feel compelled to do this is beyond me?  I’m nearly numb to the idea by now.  I am actually more surprised when any of my projects manages to survive for any time at all.  I have the images and that will have to do.  I do have this other coal project going out here.  It really isn’t any thing special.  Just coal defining the perimeter around a patch of grass I noticed growing next to a piece of driftwood.  I imagine that the wood provides some measure of protection from the wind or catches more dew and that is why this very small area of grass is growing.  The coal ring is meant to call attention to this.  So far, it has managed to survive being stepped upon, but if it doesn’t rain soon…I’m afraid my small patch of grass is a goner.

After cooking in the sun for a bit, I returned to my Styro-studio under the shade of the willow trees.  There is a trade-off.  Although I’m not under the direct scrutiny of the sun, I do however, become a tempting meal for mosquitoes and biting flies.  Looking around, I can see that I have had visitors because the Styro-figure I had stashed here has been destroyed and someone has attempted to create another figure from its remains.  An old pair of sun glasses I had previously found was just barely hanging on to the new figure’s eye-less head.  I do like it when people play along and imagine other possibilities.  I was looking through  my  larder of polystyrene chunks and wondering what to make next when I spotted some movement in the near distance.  Grabbing my camera I carefully stalked behind the trees and caught another member of the Falls’ distinctive fauna unawares.  Here is my informal portfolio of the River Cat.

Hiding behind a log I saw the River Cat hunting.  Among its habits…it is an ambush predator that conceals itself along the trails used by its prey which includes other small mammals and birds.

Once it was a common small predator found throughout the Midwest of the continent, but was persecuted and destroyed because it unfortunately developed a taste for chickens and other small livestock.  It was poisoned and trapped and extirpated from the majority of its former range.  Small remnant populations have clung on enjoying the protection they have found in state and national parks.

I watched this River Cat for several minutes before it discovered me!  It wasn’t  sure what I was and it jumped up onto a large log for a better look.  At this point, I wasn’t sure what it was going to do…but I kept on taking pictures.  Here is a close up of its head which illustrates one peculiarity about this beast.

River Cats have mismatched eyes.  There is an old pioneer wives’ tale that the secret to this cat’s hunting success lies in locking its gaze with that of its prey’s.  In effect, it momentarily hypnotizes its quarry before coming in to make the kill.  Whether or not there is any paralyzing effect at all has never been formally proven.

Once this unusual cat discovered that I was neither food nor threat it moved on.  I tagged behind at a respectful distance.  I followed it near the river before it gave me the slip.  Knowing that it was probably hungry, the thought crossed my mind that it might try to ambush one of the wading birds I saw earlier.  Picking up my collecting bag and walking stick I headed back down to the river.  Unfortunately, my luck didn’t hold out and I wasn’t treated to a real life moment where hunter meets prey.  I never saw the River Cat again, but I do have a few photos to prove it was here.

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Black Snow and Coal Stars

Posted in Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2012| 11 Comments »

I’m getting out here a little later than I was aiming for and now the summer heat is awake too.  I’ll take my precautions and take it easy under the shade of the willow trees.  There’s been another fire on the margins of this immense driftwood pile.  My guess is a hot cigarette butt flicked casually away landed on tinder and poof!  The wind probably did not encourage the flames this time.  It looks like it either went out on its own or firefighters were successful in quickly containing it.  This area under the railroad bridge still smells a little smokey.

In many ways this post is an extension of the last one…minus the ropes.  I guess I’m guilty of multitasking out here.  I often have more than one project going on at a time.  For example, I have a series of coal related investigations I have been doing that provide some relief from the Styrofoam.  Some of these  projects might make it into a coal-themed art show I’m participating in at the end of the year.  It will be interesting to see what the other artists come up with.  Last year we traveled together to see and talk with people whose lives were touched by their contact with coal.  Of course the issue of mountaintop removal was in the fore front.  Although I’m interested in the many controversies that cling to coal…I’ve also enjoyed working with it as a potential art material.  The coal that washes up at the Falls of the Ohio comes from the commercial barge traffic floating small mountains of crushed coal to the various hydroelectric plants along a channelized Ohio River.  Apparently, the river’s  current is strong enough to move these stones along and shape them.  And like Styrofoam, coal can be tumbled smooth and round in the process before it reaches me at the Falls of the Ohio.  I have found pieces as round as a chickens’ eggs and as flat as coins.

I’ve been collecting the coal I come across and looking for areas by the river that have more deposited on the sand.  First, I started with a few star shapes, but a remembered conversation I had with a friend created a different connection that I drew inspiration from.  My friend lived as a child in a small town in Pennsylvania associated with the steel industry.  He recalled that in winter, the whiteness of fresh snow would soon become gray and black due to air borne coal ash and particulates.  It was everywhere and got into everything.  That’s when I hit upon the idea of making snow flake-like designs from coal and photographing them.  Here are a few more from this series.

I’ve been placing these near well-worn paths that fishermen take to the water’s edge.  They call into attention and work with the small areas they occupy and provide visual interest.  I like that they have this public participatory aspect to them. Here are a few more sample images of the coal flakes before they “melted” back into the sand.

The white flecks in the sand are bits and pieces of ground-up mussel shells.  They mostly come from one foreign species that can out compete the local clams and deal with the present conditions.  Also mixed into this sandy matrix are pieces of river polished glass and small bits of plastic.  Here’s another project involving coal and Asiatic clam shells and a found coffee creamer jar.

I’ll conclude with two star images that were made along with the coal flakes.  The first one looks a bit like a starfish fossil…

…and this last is just simply a star!  It’s getting too hot to hang out and so I pack up and leave after a few hours fun.  That shower is going to feel good today. Have a great week everybody!

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Abstract Rope Fun

Posted in Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2012| 5 Comments »

Greetings from a very hot and humid Falls of the Ohio State Park.  The Ohio River is receding into its summer pool and more of the riverbank has been exposed.  Of late, I’ve been running into more rope fragments from commercial barge traffic (or it seems this way).  I don’t  rule out the possibility that my desire to work with these objects in this setting has brought them into my universe and attention.  See the recent post I did about “Play on Earth Day” which also features a rope project.  I’m enjoying what can be done with them to create images.  Here’s two rope investigations I did the other day.

As ropes go…this isn’t the thickest or heaviest rope I’ve found out here.  What is interesting is that most of this rope is still buried under the sand.  There is a point where it enters the ground and remains hidden and fixed to this position.  I started out just coiling the rope…I love working with spirals.  The exposed end of this cable is covered with duct tape.  Next, I pulled the rope straight to see how long it was and to see how it activated the area it was found in.

The terminal end of this rope is buried under the sand.  I used that point to move and pivot the rope to create these other images.  Here are two side views of the straight rope and the scene it underscores.

Next I tried creating a circle by joining the ends together.  The rope was stiff and not easy to shape.

This image makes it appear to be more of an ellipse, but I did my best to try to form as neat a circle as I could.  The area I’m working in is in the eastern section of the park right under the railroad bridge.  The last photo I made using this rope is more of a figure eight and loosely reminds me of a chromosome.

Now for the same rope shape involving the roots of a nearby willow tree.

I came across a second rope on this sweltering day.  My clothes were literally sticking to me.  It occurred to me that I left my water bottle in my car which on this day was not a good move.  I needed to take frequent breaks under the shade of the willow trees to keep from overheating.

This second rope fragment is much thicker than the previous example.  It also appears to be made of a natural material.  Someone else found this rope in some other part of the park and carried it to this location under the bridge where it was abandoned.  I returned a couple of days later and this rope was gone.  I wonder what other project it was destined for? Anyway, here are a few of the images I made with this interesting object.

Next I placed the unraveling end into the river to link it with the riverbank.

Last view with the unraveling end draped over a log.  This is the position I left the rope in before departing for home.  I very nearly took this rope home with me, but it was too big and heavy and the heat of the day took its toll on me.  At the time, I told myself that if this rope was still here the next time I returned that I would collect this object for later use.  Nebulously, I had this idea in my head for another installation project.  Just what I need…more junk!

After playing with this rope, my curiosity was satisfied for the day.  I’m sure I will find other ropes and cables out here as time goes by. I found myself being very envious of this trio of male Mallard ducks!  They seem to have the right idea and so I will end this post with them.  Stay cool everybody!

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Soul Man

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| 10 Comments »

The heat and the relentless light of the sun makes it official.  It’s summer at the Falls of the Ohio.  Now I need to plan my forays a bit more carefully if I want to get the most from each trip out here.  Earlier in the day is better.  You miss most of the heat, there are fewer people (except for the die-hard fishermen) and the chances are better you might see some wildlife…especially birds.  Luckily, if you don’t make it out here early enough…the trees are all in full leaf and the shade provides needed relief.  I wonder what kind of summer is boding for this year?  So far we have had the warmest spring ever being nearly a full seven degrees above normal temperatures.  Yikes!!  No doubt, summer will find a way to be memorable.  Anyway, when I’m out here I try to take some precautions in the form of drinking water and sun block.  Once my mind engages on something…I tend to forget my body.  This post is about another “personality” that I ran into on this day and the following is his story.

I came across this fellow several times during this day.  The usual protocol when encountering a stranger is maybe a quick nod of the head and each party then goes their own way.  I would have been happy to stick with this, but I kept bumping into this guy seemingly everywhere I walked.  One very curious thing about him (or her and how do you tell?) was that “he” was picking up old shoe soles and sticking them under his belt.  Here’s another view showing this.

Truthfully, I was at a loss to explain this to myself and the best I could come up with for this strange behavior was that this guy forgot his collecting bag and had some type of project that required shoe soles?  I’ve already noticed that a lot of wayward shoes wind up here courtesy of the Ohio River.  If you don’t believe me, check out my special collections area under “The Shoes You Lose” and you will doubt no more!  I haven’t added images to either collection in a while, nevertheless the lost shoes keep on coming.  Just for kicks, here are a couple additional shoes I saw on this trip that piqued my camera’s interest.

Here’s another shoe found near the previous one.  See what I mean?  I could go on and on about the shoes alone.

After my first encounter with this odd character I ran into him near a willow tree by the river’s edge and he was doing the same activity as before.

This time I abandoned my typical reserve and engaged the guy in conversation.  I think I said something like,…”Hey mister, I can’t help noticing that you are collecting shoes and shoe soles and although I know it is none of my business…what are you going to do with the footwear?”  I further added, ” I see you have tucked a few more soles into your belt since I saw you earlier.”   The Sole Man (my mental designation for him) smiled easily from his green mouth and put me at ease.  I had nothing to fear from him.  We walked together for a while and he told me what his angle is and why he does what he does.  Spotting another lost sole in the sand, my new friend bent over and lifted it up.

Upon picking the sole up, the “Sole Man” flung it over his shoulder and said follow me.

We didn’t need to walk far.  The Sole Man had a spot in mind where he told me he was going to deposit his shoes.  In the full light of the sun he selected an area marked by two shattered plastic drums, driftwood, plastic junk, and the tell-tale white beads from Styrofoam that had been deposited here by the Ohio River.

One by one my new acquaintance dropped his shoe soles in his selected spot.

He told me that he does this as a form of meditation.  Seeing all the junk from our material culture wash up here at the Falls of the Ohio has bothered him for years.  He couldn’t understand why anybody would do this to the Earth?  Fixating on all the debris was just making him madder and angrier which has  its own consequences.  He carried these shoe soles here because he wanted it to be visible so that others might see and reflect as he had.

He hit upon the idea that collecting and carrying these soles might provide him some peace of mind or insight into his fellow beings?  Each sole was a record of a lived life with their scuff marks and pressure points compressed into the very sole itself.  The sole was a record of an individual’s life experience and no two souls were bound to be alike. The old adage about not knowing a person until you walked in their shoes hit home like never before.  I asked him was it working…making him less angry?  He said that it did.  His negative feelings were replaced with something akin to empathy for he understood that he was not much different from the former owners of these shoes.  It made him feel less “high and mighty” and more of an equal stakeholder for the many conversations to come.  After a few more photographs, I bid my new friend good luck.  Leaving him, I placed one foot in front of the other and headed for home on this hot day.

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Bonus Feature #301…How to Make a Styro-Bird

Posted in animal art works, Art, art and environment, birds and birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature photography, Originality, public art, recycled art, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2012| 7 Comments »

I enjoy processes and since I had additional images relating to my last post…I thought I would throw them in for fun.  I also harbor this very idealistic idea that everyone is born creative…it’s just that most people don’t view themselves in this way which I believe is at the heart of our environmental dysfunction and a great shame.  Somehow we have replaced creating with consuming. The following images hopefully show that you can create magic out of nothing.  There isn’t anything technical happening here.  If you can do Mr. Potato Head than you have the basic idea behind creating this bird.  The materials are not manipulated greatly.  I like nature to form the shapes I use. The only carving involved is in cutting slots into the body to hold the wings.  I did shave away one wing to make it thinner. I did poke holes in the head for the eyes.  I shortened the willow roots for the legs and the beak is held in place with a wooden peg just as the head attaches with its own little stick which also helps the head to swivel. Now I know this sounds a bit flip, but the hard part is seeing the possibility behind something that’s intrinsically worthless and imagining what else this could be?  Looking at the following series of images at home, I’m struck by the altar quality of the log I have spread out my materials on at my temporary outdoor studio.  I do feel that being an artist is a reverential activity.  I like to think my “art” is somehow in the service of life.  I believe you will recognize most of the components of this bird, but they include Styrofoam, wood bark, dried willow rootlets, the plastic nose cone of a small bottle rocket, plastic and foam “gaskets”, and charcoal for the eyes.  All materials were found on site at the river.  I found the little bowl that morning and it’s great to hold the little pieces I use.  I’m not a great photographer in the classic sense in that I don’t concern myself greatly with exposures and settings.  My camera is set on automatic.  I do, however, try to create an interesting image or composition that “says” something to me about that day and this place.  Give it a try…it’s fun to do!

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