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Posts Tagged ‘driftwood’

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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The river has given ground, but just a sliver of it.  Although the waters have retreated, the Ohio River is still higher than usual.  On the immediate riverbank is a new wooden obstacle course of washed away trees and huge logs.  I find myself a walking stick and go exploring.  I cover ground I have visited hundreds of times before and yet  is made different with each episode of high water.  I began this trip descending the frail cut lumber staircase whose bottom steps were recently covered by the river.  I see a man and his children playing in the sand and pebbles and it looks like they are also building something.  I wait for them to wander off to gather fresh materials before sneaking a closer peak.

They have taken a recently washed up piece of Styrofoam and added some other found elements to improvise a toy raft.  Jutting from the foam are many spent cigarette lighters ( you can always find these).  There is also the red plastic flag from a mailbox…the kind you stand up to alert the postal carrier that you have outgoing mail.  I can also see a larger piece of blue plastic, perhaps a sail?  To me, it also resembles a shark fin.  As much as I like this family’s creativity, I am however, dismayed by the graffiti on the side of the log. This is something I’m starting to see more of on the bridge and through out the park.  It makes me wistful for the days when scrawling bad words and so and so loves so and so in the sand were sufficient means of expression.

The walking stick comes in handy when you are not sure how deep the mud is in a certain area.  You need to pick your path through by stepping on branches and broken planks.  You can see brightly colored plastic just about everywhere you go.  There are moderate to heavy waves along the river’s edge.  Today I have a paper sack with me to collect the small river treasures carried by the water.  This proves to be a mistake because the sack soon becomes water-logged and the bottom falls out.

I pick my way towards the railroad bridge because when the river was at its crest…this spot had the most incredible amount of wood and debris floating in the water.  I wanted to see the aftermath.  I came across this formation created when the water level left these logs high and dry.  A very fine coating of mud and dampness unifies the scene in neutral tones of brown and gray because the greening of spring is only just beginning.  I had hoped to see a bird or two, but they weren’t in this area.

It’s a cool and very overcast day and got progressively colder as the day wore on.  In fact, it would blow snow on this night.  Because the light was subdued, there were fewer harsh shadows and I felt that I could read the forms better.  Everywhere you looked there was the jumble of logs and branches twisted and interconnected together.  I recognized little from just a couple of weeks a go, with the exception of the UFO or Unidentified Floating Object which was miraculously still there.

This big circular platform first appeared here a couple of years a go.  It came with another flood that swept it loose from wherever it came from, washed it over the dam, and deposited it here.  My sons first thought it looked like a flying saucer, but I said it was an unidentified floating object instead.  We also speculated that this could be the plug found at the bottom of the river…and when it was pulled, the river drained like a bath tub.  It’s about a dozen feet across and we used to dance on it.  I’m really surprised that it’s still here and didn’t move along with the river on its way to the ocean.  Apparently, nobody has missed this thing since it’s been here for years.  When it began spitting rain I decided to turn back the way I came and headed for the staircase.

The people who made the “Styro-raft” were gone and now was a better time to sneak a peek at their creation.  I snapped a few photographs for my collection.  Before leaving I could see that they had attempted to launch their colorful craft into the river…but the Ohio was not in the mood.  I have had this experience before where the wind and waves on the river push back whatever you hope to have float away.  It probably disappointed the kids, but in their imaginations I’m sure they can see a little of themselves riding their unidentified floating object on its journey westward towards adventure and new lands.

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The Ohio River is even higher now than my last post.  I hope to venture out today and snap a few pictures to share later.  It’s sobering watching nature do what it can do.  I began the morning looking online at the damage the earthquake and tsunami have wreaked upon northern Japan.  Those folks need our help…please contribute however you can. 

Back in Kentuckiana, we are safe.  The flood gates are up and we are not expecting any heavy rain showers that would further swell the river.  Low-lying areas such as the aptly named River Road are under water.  Residents who live directly by the water have either evacuated or moved their possessions to higher ground which in some cases is the roof of their homes.  For these people, their love of the river is worth the periodic inconveniences it can pose.  The Ohio River is expected to crest today and begin falling back to normal pool which will take several days.

Until then, I have had the opportunity to look through images from the past year and put together a few “scrapbooks”  This one is of my plein air studio that I extensively used for ten months beginning in June 2010.  It’s now gone.  I’ll know more when I get the chance to visit.  I originally selected this site because it was relatively out of view, but close to where I was finding my materials.  Having a somewhat “fixed” location also gave the public who stumbled upon this spot, a chance to interact with the materials I was finding and provided more choices than finding the single figures I made throughout the park.  People could make their own sculptures…happily some were made.  So, here are a few pictures taken over the course of several seasons or about nine months worth.

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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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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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For me, the toughest part of the winter is getting through all the grayness.  Spring is a month and a half away.  Thanks a lot groundhog.  Family and work  obligations coupled with the crummy weather are keeping me closer to home than usual.

When I look at my Falls images from this winter, the park has an almost exhausted feel to it.  The river spent itself washing wood and our material culture upon this shoreline.  The large object my son named “The Plug from the Bottom of the River” has been around for months…but I love the sense of theatre it presents in this landscape! What is this thing really and what is it doing here?  Before it disappears in the next flood, I should stage some Styro-spectacle on it.

The parade of found river objects will never cease.  I tell myself that I should use this time to organize all the loose ends (objects and images) that an investigation of this scope produces.  Of late, I have had a few more inquiries about presenting aspects of this project in one form or another.  It all sounds good, but I know some things are presented more as trial balloons, but that’s also a part of the creative process.  It’s about stuff bumping into each other and seeing what connections are created.  The last time I was out to the river I stopped by and photographed some earlier works from last year.  For the most part, I think they hold up fairly well considering their construction as well as many of the parts used are ephemeral.

In a world where we all live speeded up lives, it is easy to forget that we also need a chance to be fallow.  That’s what winter is best for…incubating ideas and marshalling energy.  I may have to go down into my basement and take care of business there.  The physical evidence of this project is spilling out of bags and boxes.  I think I may be able to substitute my wish to go outside with rediscovering and reorganizing what I have already found.  There’s sure to be a few gems hidden among that driftwood.  Well, I’m telling myself that…until the sun shines again!

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It snowed today, it’s cold, and the river is rising.  I’m imagining that my studio site is in danger of getting swamped.  In all the years I have done this project,  I have only once been present at the moment the river carried my work away.  It was wierd watching the water inch slowly but surly towards my feet.  I had a couple of Styrofoam figures that the river just gently lifted away.  It looks like I won’t be making it to the river this weekend and so I put together a few recent and related images to present to you.  It’s all just river stuff I came across at the Falls of the Ohio.  I especially like the image of the log set on its end.

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The big-nosed figure had a nephew, a child of the high river.  His name is Penguin Boy and he was assembled on the same day as his much taller kinsman.  Once you see the pictures, it might begin to make sense?  This story continues my last post.  With the Ohio River rising again, the creeping waters would eventually filter through the driftwood and lift my studio away.  It is bound to happen, does so most every winter before the change of the seasons.  I’m using the biggest pieces of Styrofoam I have collected from the river, before the water takes it all back again.  Here’s the second foam figure I made from river finds this day.  He’s considerably smaller and a little odd-looking.

For months, Penguin Boy existed as junk I found along the shoreline at the Falls of the Ohio.  I spontaneously assembled its elements and tried to create an image with it before the short winter light diffused into tomorrow.  The figure’s eyes and nose are three different fishing bobbers.  The ears are two plastic lids from snuff containers.  Penguin Boy’s mouth is a squished bottle-cap and the name came to me because of the shape of the body.  I don’t know what the yellow “T” is on top of the head, but it is hard plastic.  Here are a couple close-up views of the head.

That certain demented look comes from the eyes which are two different sizes.  I have always been fascinated by the fact our faces are not completely symmetrical.  I remember from art history how the northern renaissance painters had noticed this and used it in their early portraits.  I always thought this helped psychologically charge their likenesses and gave them personality.  I moved Penguin Boy around and added a deflated soccer ball which gave one arm more of a sense of purpose.

While I’m photographing this figure, the river is just pushing logs into the shallow water.  One of my feet is already wet and the knowledge that the other foot is dry is of little comfort!  I added this piece to the ensemble I have going back at my studio.  I changed Penguin Boy and took a few snapshots with his larger uncle, gathered my stuff and left.  I’ll show you images of this duo the next time around.  One last image before I go.

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 It’s a 50 degree day in mid winter and the river is rising.  I tried to make the best of the few hours I had to work outdoors this weekend.  It could have been sunnier, but at least it stayed warm and dry.  I made two figures and photographed them at the Falls of the Ohio.  Here’s the largest of the two in progress with a couple of old friends over wintering in the background.

I decided to try to use two of the bigger Styrofoam chunks I had stored at the studio site.  Eventually, the river is going to cover this area and so it’s use it or lose it time.  I have enough stuff in my bag to make quick decisions and there’s lots of driftwood to use everywhere around me.  The Ohio River seems restless and the constant waves have driftwood and logs pinned to the shoreline.  To make the features on this head I used mismatched fishing bobbers for eyes.  The asymmetry in the eyes makes for a more intense effect.  The large nose is the plastic head off of a toy golf club.  The ears are pieces of Styrofoam.  The mouth is suggested by a broken toy sand shovel I stuck into the foam.  I found some plastic collar to transition the head into the body and the rest is driftwood sticks.

I recycled the big Styrofoam piece from an earlier work made last spring.  It’s a little more battered the second time around.  When I added the head and legs, it made this figure taller than me.  I posed it around the studio site and then photographed it near the water to see if I could find more light.  Eventually, I moved the figure back to my studio area and posed it next to the second figure I made today.  I will show you that one next time around.

I had two people approach me while I was working who are also Falls enthusiasts and had seen my art out here before.  One young woman, an art student at the University of Cincinnati, was looking for driftwood.  She planned to pull a mold from the wood towards the goal of creating a bronze sculpture of her own.  After exchanging first names, the second conversation had a turn of its own.  The gentleman told me that he too had come down to the Falls for years and had seen other projects of mine.  For awhile, he said that a picture he took of one of my Styrofoam heads was his image of himself on his Facebook page!  I wonder which one it was and don’t know why I didn’t think to ask him at the time?  Imagine, having a face good enough for Facebook!

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A pox on the weatherman for lying.  Today did not turn out sunny and in the 50’s.  It was foggy, cold, windy, and gray.  I started the morning by misplacing my trusty pocket knife.  You never realize how much you need something until you miss it.  It was given to me by my friend James, who is a potter and blogger.  I hurriedly threw another knife into the bag and headed out the door.  Among the other items I could have used, but didn’t have included:  a hat, a warm coat, and gloves.  I was carried along with the idea that eventually the sun would burn away the fog.  Two days later…I’m still waiting.  One way to stay warm is to keep your mind occupied by other things like taking pictures and making art.

I stayed out until the tips of my fingers were getting numb and my nose was dripping.  I would have gone home sooner, but I was finding stuff to work with and soon had enough for a figure.  Here are most of the pieces before assembly.  The materials I used included:  Styrofoam, beaver-chewed willow wood, bits of plastic including the red cap from a marker, a reflector, coal, glass, and a bit of twine.

You find the creek by walking west along the Woodland Trail.  This is where this sculpture and these pictures were made.  During the last high water incident, driftwood and logs were deposited along the high banks of the creek.  Some of the logs will conform perfectly to the contours of the hillside while others remain a jumble of giant pick-up sticks.

Here’s the figure in progress.  The knife I’m using is for filleting fish and I found it out here about three years a go.  This is the first time I have ever used it for anything and it is sharp enough to sharpen sticks and poke holes in the Styrofoam.  In the cold, I tried to work as quickly and as surely as I could.  By now, I have worked with these materials and forms so many times that there is little wasted motion.  I’ve learned to create within many limitations. 

In the springtime, I look for migrating waterthrushes in this area.  And in the summer, as the logs dry out, I may try to walk across the creek on top of  one of them.  For now, things are damp and slippery and not worth the risk.  I finished the figure and took one last shot before heading home.  Finding the branch that looks like a bird’s foot was the inspiration for this guardian figure.  In the background, the creek joins the Ohio River marking the territorial boundary for the Birdfoot Clan.

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