flotsam and jetsam | Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Posts Tagged ‘flotsam and jetsam’

River Report at the End of the Year

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, assemblage art, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, Photograpy, plastic, Plastic art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, creativity, environment, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flotsam and jetsam, Life on the Ohio River, Plastic litter, sculpture, sense of place, site specific art, Styrofoam art on December 29, 2017| 5 Comments »

Artist at Exit 0 site the day after Christmas 2017

It’s the day after Christmas at the Falls of the Ohio on an admittedly nippy day. I stopped by my trusty site under the now bare willow trees to see how this latest group of sculptures and artworks are faring? Each time I come out here, I’m just as likely to find things knocked down and destroyed. A couple of posts back, I documented my site and the figures that were created there beginning in May of this year. I initially called the Styro-figures “The Assembled” and after they were vandalized they became “The Re-Assembled”. Well, even this group is now history after every standing figure was decapitated and speared! Here are some before and after images. I used this final image of “The Re-Assembled” with the peace sign on my Christmas cards this year.

Final View of "The Re-Assembled" with Flip-Flop Peace Sign, at the Falls of the Ohio, early Dec. 2017

"The Re-Assembled" decapitated and impaled, Dec. 2017

Every head was destroyed and that is where much of the personality of each figure resides. I gathered what remained of the heads and bodies and added them to the pile. I picked up what loose fishing floats that I had adapted for eyes and other plastic parts I used that were still in the area and placed them in my collecting bag. The found flip-flop peace sign was obliterated. It wasn’t up a week yet! Interestingly, the colorful plastic container arrangement I have on site has survived three attacks! It has essentially remained intact with me adding to it every once in a while.

Scrambled found flip-flop peace sign at the Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

Of course we can’t leave things there! I visited my site in early December with Jason Moore, an art student at Murray State University who came to my presentation there last October. He was in town on winter break and asked to tag along. Together, we started the process of straightening things up and beginning some new pieces. I put him in charge of the flip-flop pit which was a very new medium for him. The only guidance I gave him was that he needed to use every sandal on site! He had one false attempt before arranging the flip-flops in this design.

Jason Moore, first attempt at a flip-flop design at the Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

Jason Moore with his found flip-flop design at the Falls of the Ohio. Dec. 2017

As Jason tries his hand at this site specific piece, I set to work on creating what turned out to be an imposing figure that towers over you on site. After pairing a new head with a new body I began creating this figure’s features. As I’m doing this…I’m also aware that I am now re-re-reusing many of these materials. Some of this stuff has played a part in multiple figures.

A new head begins, Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

This is where a new work begins. I searched through my collecting bag looking for the found components to make up the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. I then find a stick to attach the head to the body and then look for driftwood, tree roots, etc…to make the limbs. Here is how the head eventually presented.

Detail of my new figure's head, Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

I thought the toe thong “thingie” from an old flip-flop made a decent mustache! Let’s pull back a little to take a wider look at things. This image shows the new figure dramatically illuminated as the sun sets.

New Styro-figures just before the Winter Solstice, Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

Jason created the small figure with the plastic squirrel and I added the round-headed, portly figure. Another week later I would add a fourth this time blue-bodied figure to bring us to the present.

Styro-skulls on the polystyrene pile, Falls of the Ohio, Dec. 2017

It has been a very interesting year and as it ends it’s good to reflect a bit. Perhaps creatively… this has been one of my better years. I think the work overall has taken on a more formal look as I continue to work with different materials. I’m out here as often as I can get away. A big change is in using other social media platforms to “publish” what I’m doing which was something I once reserved exclusively for this blog. I’m on Facebook and Instagram regularly which has been a fun way to share pictures. I’ve had a couple of exhibition opportunities this year which was great and unexpected. I’m even ending the year and this post…with some very positive press which also serendipitously came my way.

Here is a link to a lot of content that the News and Tribune, a southern Indiana newspaper, put together about my Falls of the Ohio Project. Albertus Gorman News and Tribune Article This link has a video shot at the Falls of the Ohio as I demonstrate what I do.

I will leave it here for this year and hope that everyone out in the wider world has a very Happy New Year. See you at the river during 2018.

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On Katinka’s Tour

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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At Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden

Posted in Absurd, Art, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, material culture, nature, Photograpy, recycled art, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged Albertus Gorman, Art, artist at exit 0, Bob Hill, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, found objects, Franklin Tree, garden art, gardening, Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Gardern, Jerry Voyles, material culture, nature, plastic trash, public art, recycled art, recycled materials, sense of place, site specific art, Styrofoam, Utica, Whimsical art on June 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

In many ways this post is a continuation of my last published one on “The Crying Indian”. I made that sculpture for this occasion which was a cart-blanch invitation from owner Bob Hill to place my river art in the context of eight acres of wonderful plantings that include many unusual and rare plants. My work is far from the more durable art made from metal or stone that you would expect to see in a garden, but I’m always interested in placing my art in a less than typical gallery situations. Hidden Hill is located in the tiny town of Utica, Indiana very near the Ohio River and not too far from my home in Louisville, KY. To be on the grounds of Hidden Hill is a true delight and it’s easy to imagine that you are in a far more remote place than you actually are.

Bob Hill is a well-known personality in our area. He was a long-time columnist for Louisville’s Courier-Journal newspaper which in the days before Gannett took over was a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper with a big and loyal following. Bob is now “retired” from the paper, but he is still an active author of books and articles and a big advocate for the joys of gardening. When he opened Hidden Hill with his wife Janet, he realized that if they were going to compete against the big box stores selling bedding plants and more that they needed interesting stock that you just can’t find anywhere else. Garden aficionados know who he is and will travel throughout our region to see what new specialties he is cultivating. At the opening of my show, two gardeners who traveled from a distant Kentucky county went home with one of the two Franklinia alatamaha trees that Bob had in stock. The Franklin Tree was named after Benjamin Franklin and is a small flowering tree that is now extinct in the wild and was last seen in its natural habitat during the early part of the 19th century. A few timely cuttings and seeds taken upon discovery have kept this pretty tree alive to the present day.

Great plants are not the only attraction at Hidden Hill. Bob’s idea was to create a destination that would also be fun to visit and he has invited many artists over the years to place work on his property. If there is one word that would describe the kind of garden art that Bob likes it would be “whimsical” and his grounds are full of examples. Hill is fond of creating mini-environments where the plants and art work in concert with one another.

I love this figure made by artist Jerry Voyles out of welded and painted watering cans. Voyles is particularly well-represented at Hidden Hill. Other area artists of note who have work at Bob’s place include Matt Weir, Caren Cunningham, John McCarthy, Jeff Reinhardt, Samantha Grifith & Jen Pellerin, Joe Autry, and many more including yours truly now.

This is another of my newer sculptures made for this show. I call this one “Earth Knight” and it is made completely from materials I scavenged off of the riverbank at the Falls of the Ohio State Park this year. “Earth Knight” is about 7 1/2 feet tall and is mostly made from Styrofoam. The body is embellished with the bottoms of aluminum cans which turns out to be the strongest part of the can. Often, it is the only part of a can left after the river has its way with it. Embedded among the can bottoms is a plastic gray heart that I also found at the river. I thought the head seemed somewhat “helmet-like” and I went with that idea for the whole figure. The Earth after all is in desperate need of defenders and protectors. Other materials used in this piece include found plastic, driftwood, and coal which are in both eyes. This piece is located next to a marvelous Weeping Katsura Tree and a large evergreen which form the perfect background for this piece. Here are some other views of this work.

When I sited this figure, I wanted to see if I could work with the mirrors that were mounted by another artist on a nearby tree. This was the best of those images that shows “Earth Knight” in context, but reversed due to the reflection. Here is another recent big piece. I call this figure “Flora” and the numerous flower references on her are why she has this name. Again everything I have used was found at the river.

“Flora” speaks the language of flowers and I have numerous found references from the Falls of the Ohio on “her”. The main material is river-polished Styrofoam and the body was also found this year. I also found the plastic planter with the bright pink sand shovel and was delighted when I came across a large root that I could use as an “arm” to hold these two elements with ease. I have embedded found rubber balls around her waist line. “Flora” is the second largest piece I have out at Hidden Hill and is about 6 1/2 feet tall. Again all the elements that comprise her including the wooden base were found at the Falls of the Ohio. One good aspect about my art is that I spend nearly nothing for art supplies because the world is already full of free stuff all around you. “Flora” has a silk flower emerging from her mouth that was also found by the river and has traveled some unknown distance to finally reach this place. And now, for the last of the four large works I have out in Bob’s gardens.

The smaller of the four new garden pieces is this one entitled “Figure with a Red Ball” which is about 5 feet tall. Among the materials used in its construction include Styrofoam, plastic, coal, a glass marble, driftwood, and aluminum. This piece has a very different “persona” from the other new figures I have made for Hidden Hill. I do have other works on display and Bob has a covered shed where he let me set up several other more portable works from my Falls series. Here’s a glimpse at that display.

So far, I’ve given a short tour for visitors and did a demonstration where I made a small, absurd figure from found river materials. It was a cold and rainy day when the show opened, but some intrepid souls came out to say hello which I appreciate greatly! I love that there is no definitive ending date and the figures in the shed will be available to be seen for about a month. Certainly, not the art world as usual! I will probably leave a couple of the larger figures out at Hidden Hills for a longer indeterminate time. Bob and Janet’s place is open Thursdays through Sundays and by appointment. If you are curious to learn more about their plant nursery here is the link to their website: http://www.hiddenhillnursery.com I have since continued my river forays to the Falls of the Ohio and I look forward to presenting those posts on this blog. Thanks for checking this out! Until next time…

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The Crying Indian

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, driftwood, ecostory, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, found materials, Genius loci, green-washing, Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden, Iron Eyes Cody, litter, Louisville, nature, photography, plastic bottles, plastic containers, pollution, polystyrene, repurposed materials, river materials, sculpture, sense of place, Styrofoam, The Crying Indian, trash on May 29, 2016| 12 Comments »

I touched on this briefly with my last post, but it has taken a couple of weeks to return to the story of “The Crying Indian”. This post is both about the figure I created from found Styrofoam and the true story about one of the most successful Public Service Announcements of all time. A few months back, I accepted the invitation of Bob Hill to show some of my river creations at his Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden in Utica, Indiana which is just across the river from my home in Louisville, KY. After the high water we had in late winter and early spring, I had the opportunity and collected several large pieces of Styrofoam off of the riverbank with the intentions of making a few large figures that I could use for the Hidden Hill show. I was successful in accomplishing this goal and the first figure I made was to become the piece I call “The Crying Indian”.

I really don’t have a proper studio. Just a basement at home that I hoard all the materials that I bring home from the river and the few finished works that I keep. I really do prefer working outdoors at the Falls of the Ohio where I can work relatively quickly. On occasion, I have a need to create work that is a little more formal or ambitious and requires more time to put together. With a deadline approaching for a May 21 opening and weather unpredictable…I set about creating what I could in this cramped space. There are some advantages like being able to listen to music or moving the laundry along and snacks are just a short staircase away. Sitting at the foot of those basement steps, I weighed my options and introduced elements that may or may not become a part of the finished work. The large chunks of Styrofoam that I had brought home from this year’s flooding were outside leaning against my house. I selected the third largest piece and brought it into the basement. It was time to go to work.

Going into this sculpture, I knew that I wanted to keep it fairly “classical” meaning that most of the elements I used were white in color in “imitation” of marble statuary. I chose a river-polished hunk of Styrofoam for a potential head that felt somewhat in proportion to the figure I envisioned. I sifted through bags and boxes of river collections and chose two hollow, plastic, and crushed fake golf balls for eyes. The nose is a piece of polystyrene that is cone-shaped. The mouth is a plastic and foam element from an old football helmet and the ears are pieces of Styrofoam. The element that would become “the feather” in the Indian’s headdress was a broken plastic kayak? paddle that I had recently found and thought would look great in this context. I would later use glacier and river worn quartz pebbles for the tears, but this was one of the last elements I introduced into this piece. The rest of the work would be Falls of the Ohio driftwood and plastic elements collected in the park.

As I’m working on this, I’m also having an internal conversation with myself. Talking to my materials I silently ask, “What do you want to be?” I’ll pose questions and trust my subconscious to help me out by providing a few clues that become ideas that can be elaborated upon. In this case, I was remembering that great Public Service Announcement from 1971 that is known as “The Crying Indian”. I was wondering why there weren’t similar ads on television now decrying pollution and litter and extolling the public to do what they can do to help which is also the right thing to do? What seems to rule the air waves now in the way of public service has more to do with finding cures for cancer and other maladies that afflict us…and that is important too. Another little voice within me also feels that many of these physiological problems we endure will find their root causes in an increasingly degraded and contaminated environment. For old times sake I looked up that original Crying Indian ad that was sponsored from the Keep America Beautiful folks and found it as effective as I had remembered it. During my search, I clicked on a few other stories related to the Crying Indian and that’s when my jaw dropped in amazement.

The first big surprise is a story full of ironies beginning with the actor playing the”Crying Indian”…he was not a Native American in the first place. “Iron Eyes Cody”, America’s favorite movie and television Indian was born Espera Oscar de Corti in Gueydon, Louisiana in 1904. He was actually a second generation Italian American. He had a rough upbringing and when he was a child he left with his father for the American West. It was out there that he first experienced indigenous cultures as well as the entertainment industry where he was to find life-long employment. His first role, playing a Native American child happened in 1919 in a silent film entitled “Back to God’s Country”. Iron Eyes Cody’s film and television career ultimately spanned the 1930’s to the 1980’s. He claimed to be of Cherokee and Cree descent, but he needed his braided wig to become at least the image of an Indian. Apparently, he never quite confessed to his deception and even lived to the ripe old age of 94. Although Iron Eyes Cody was not a real Native American, he seems to have lived his life otherwise respecting the indigenous cultures. He married a Native American woman and they adopted two Native children…one of whom became one of the best Native American musicians. Perhaps it was the times, but I have to believe that if this ad were to be remade today that the public would insist that the Indian be at least genuine.

I didn’t feel that this figure was complete without photographing it in the context of the Falls of the Ohio where I originally found the materials that comprise it. The addition of the white jugs became important not only because I have recently been doing a lot of outdoor assemblages using plastic containers, but returning to the fascinating story of “The Crying Indian”. As was mentioned, this PSA was sponsored by Keep American Beautiful and the Advertising Council did the ad for free as a way of stimulating business interests in our country. The Ad Council also created Smokey the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, this is your brain on drugs with the egg frying in the pan, buckle up for safety which was an early seat belt public service announcement and many more. As for the Keep America Beautiful folks….well, they actually represented an organization consisting of companies that produced bottles and containers of all kinds which make up a huge part of the litter you see everywhere but in the PSA crafted for them. The Crying Indian ad is now considered a classic case of green-washing. What occurred with this PSA was to put the responsibility for litter square on the backs of consumers and deflected any blame away from the manufacturers that produce these containers in the first place. Once upon a time, containers were returned to their point of origin to be cleaned and reused, but there was a lot less trouble and more money to be made in convincing the public that single use containers were the way to go. We are still in that place forty years later. You can never underestimate the power of ad agencies to understand human behavior and psychology and use it against us to further the goals of their clients. A good part of the shame people felt upon seeing trash being thrown at the feet of Iron Eyes Cody had to do with the subtle guilt that many people feel for displacing and persecuting the original inhabitants of this land. That added ingredient helped make this one of the most successful public service announcements ever made.

Here are a few images of the finished piece in place at Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden. It looks great where it’s at and I will do another story soon that will include the other sculptures I made for this occasion. Some of them turned out very well, although they don’t quite have the back story that the figure does. Hidden Hill is a special and beautiful place and I look forward to sharing more pictures with you.

I used Ginger Brand’s great article entitled, “The Crying Indian” that originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Orion Magazine for much of the information included in this post. Brand really goes much farther than I could go here and I highly recommend this read. Here is a link to that story…https://orionmagazine.org/the-crying-indian/ Another good source of information came from Priceonomics and the link to that story is http://priceonomics.com/the-true-story-of-the-crying-indian/ And, if you want to see the original one minute long public service announcement, it is available on YouTube and at the end of this post. Until next time…

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Easter Day Odds and Ends

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, plastic, public art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Bob Hill, Chiel Kuijl, Easter, Falls of the Ohio, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flotsam and jetsam, found materials, holiday junk, lost purse, material culture, nature, odds and ends, photography, plastic Easter basket, plastic egg, sense of place, Southern Indiana Living Magazine, Tasmanian Devil plush toy on March 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Today is Easter and close enough to month’s end to post an article of little things that weren’t quite strong enough to be posts unto themselves. Since almost all of our holidays have a significant material culture connection to them…it’s “natural” that I would find some of the remains here at the Falls of the Ohio. Just looking at recent images, here are a few such holiday related objects and images to ponder.

Crushed and mix among all the other debris is the remains of what was probably a child’s Easter basket. Although a novel item, I can remember in “my day”, the colorful wooden baskets worked just as well as the plastic ones, but without the long-term ramifications. Interestingly, this plastic basket “mimics” the texture of an actual wooden basket. Here are a couple of “egg-related” images to enjoy.

I certainly would be very afraid of the giant American Robin that laid this large blue egg! This is how it appeared when I first encountered it on the driftwood pile. This picture is from last year and I eventually used it for an all-blue colored assemblage. This egg does not come apart and was made to be purely decorative. One more egg picture to go and here it is.

Two views of the extremely rare and transient bird, Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf, interacting with a found plastic egg. I photographed this bird investigating/playing? with this bright yellow plastic egg with a Sponge Bob Squarepants design on it. I’m certain the egg once contained Easter candy in it, but now that it’s empty it becomes a candidate for the worldwide junk pile. To see more Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf images please see my previous post. People ask me all the time…”Al, have you ever found anything of real value?” Usually, I reply that I’m waiting for that solid gold ingot to wash up here…but I’m not holding my breath on that one! Recently, however, I did come across something that had great value for someone and here it is.

Walking along the riverbank in the eastern section of the park…I spied a soggy and muddy purse at the water’s edge. Investigating further, I could see that there was a wallet and checkbook inside and so I opened up the wallet to see if the owner’s name could be found. As it turns out, this person’s credit cards, insurance cards, driver’s license, etc…were all still there. I took the muddy purse home and called the person whom it belongs to and she was thrilled that her purse had turned up somewhere. She had given it up for lost after someone had broken into her home a week before and took the purse along with a few other electronic items. The thief who broke into and entered her home only took the seven dollars in cash she had and then threw the purse into the river. The elderly woman whose purse this is was most anxious to get back the family photos she kept in her wallet. Included among them were precious black and white photos of her own parents that could not be replaced. Since the owner lived in Southern Indiana we met the following day at my place of work in New Albany and I gave her property back to her. That certainly was my good deed for that day. Here’s another lost and found item I’m posting just for fun. First, here’s how this object appeared as I came across it.

On first blush…I recoiled slightly because I associated the brown fur with a dead animal. I have found several dead deer out here this year and if this was that…I wanted nothing to do with it. Looking more closely and since few animals are this uniformly brown I could make out that it was synthetic fur and not the real thing. So, I reached down and lifted the mystery object from its sand, mud, and wood chip debris matrix to reveal…

…this good size plush toy of the Tasmanian Devil (aka “Taz”). I guess he was waiting to ambush any unsuspecting prey like me that came across its path. Years a go, I found a much smaller Tasmanian Devil and posted about that one too, but this one was truly “trophy size”. And now, to introduce someone who actually knows something about the history of Tasmania.

This is Chiel Kuijl who is visiting from the Netherlands and is at the time of this writing the current Artist at Residence at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky. I ran into him the day the Heisenberg’s Hammerkopf was spotted out at the Falls. Chiel is creating a site specific work at Bernheim using rope to create an elevated space that people can explore. He needed some interesting pieces of wood for his installation and the Falls of the Ohio State Park is a great place for that. I have had the chance to interact a little bit more with Chiel so far and look forward to his finished project and hanging out with him more. Oh, Tasmania was visited early on by Dutch sailors who help put it onto the world’s map. Holland has a great seafaring tradition and I wouldn’t doubt that some of Chiel’s skill with ropes and knots is a part of that heritage. One more artist to talk about before closing…

The current issue of Southern Indiana Living features an article about me…the Artist at Exit 0 written by good friend and retired Courier-Journal columnist Bob Hill. Bob now in his “retirement” also runs Hidden Hills nursery where unusual and rare plants and trees are offered for sale. Every once in a while, Bob will invite artists to place projects at Hidden Hills which is what I will do in late May. The day we went out to see something about the world I like to explore it is was about twenty degrees or so and an earlier attempt at a photo shoot was thwarted by snow and extreme cold. Here is the link for the article should anyone care to check that out…Artist at Exit 0 magazine article. This issue is good for one more month and I have had a lot of fun with this and have been gratified by the response from friends and family through Facebook. The actual article begins on page 22 and the link allows you to turn the pages of the magazine which is cool too. Well, there you have it…my odds and ends post to conclude March 2016. Spring is starting out warm and promising and I look forward to many more new adventures on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. See you then!

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Riverbank Projects on a Grey Morning

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, found materials, Found objects, lost and found, lost sandals, Louisville, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River flooding, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art and the environment, artist at exit 0, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, flotsam and jetsam, found objects, Genius loci, nature, Ohio River, photography, plastic bottles, plastic color spectrum, plastic pollution, sense of place, spirit of a place, walking along the riverbank on March 13, 2016| 8 Comments »

The river has finally given us a reprieve from the high waters of the past month. I got an early start from my home in Louisville and crossed the Second Street Bridge on my way to the Falls of the Ohio. Today, I decided to do something a little different and wandered the eastern bank of the Ohio River on the Indiana side which technically is not in the Falls of the Ohio State Park proper. I just kept walking and walking and had no trouble filling my collecting bags with potential art materials. Overall, it would turn out to be a good day and I managed a couple of modest projects which are the subject of this post.

I walked as far east as I could without feeling like I was wandering onto private property. I figured if someone were to challenge me, they probably wouldn’t object to me picking up the plastic and river-polished Styrofoam that soon filled up my bags. As it turned out, I didn’t encounter a person all day long. It could be that hiking along a muddy riverbank isn’t most people’s cup of tea, but that’s just speculation on my part! I did come to one spot that afforded a nice view of Louisville’s skyline. To take these pictures, I stood in what was once a creek that originally fed into the river. That must have been some time ago, however, because the view behind me is somewhat industrial. Now it’s a spot where the water backs up when the river is high. Everywhere I wandered I found lots of junk mixed into a driftwood and ground up tree bark matrix. Here are a few of the items I found that were a bit more interesting.

Here is a picture of miniature plastic river corn poking out among the woody debris. There’s something about finding plastic plants out here that still provokes me. I picked this corny cluster up and into the collecting bag it went to ultimately join the other fake food items that I have assembled over the years.

And now for a toy figure that probably represents a disk jockey character complete with over sized jewelry and a microphone. I don’t recognize this character and it occurs to me that I’m now hopelessly out of synch with cartoon popular culture. My sense is that programs come and go so quickly now that the plastic crap these shows spawn far exceeds the actual life of the shows themselves.

Moving closer to the railroad bridge that I like to work around…I found this realistic toy lion. I think this is an example of how you can develop “a six sense” for finding stuff, because this lion was the same color as the wood chips and debris it was mixed into. Stuff that is neon colored like many plastic items are makes them relatively hard to miss. Let me show you what I mean.

Here’s my latest color spectrum arrangement made from found plastic. I gathered these components up along my walk on the riverbank just east of the park. I found a place that was relatively sheltered by the wind that had just picked up after my arrival. Today, I found a bit more purple than I usually come across.

Most of the plastic items in this assemblage are bottles of various sorts. This time, I did add a few “humorous” toy finds like the plastic frog and rubber duck wearing sun glasses. Since I still had a few hours to devote to today’s walk…I decided to venture further west and into the park to see what changes the river had made and to make one other piece I had in mind.

After filling my bag up with plastic bottles, I then switched to collecting lost flip-flops. In a relatively short amount of time I had picked up enough of these cheap sandals of varying sizes, colors, and designs to make something with. Since this is spring and we certainly have had our share of rain…it stands to reason that flowers would soon follow. I began my arrangement by taking the larger flip-flops and using them as the base. Gradually, I worked towards the center overlaying and stacking the smaller sandals that a child would wear. The result was something that I called a “Chrysanthemum” in my plastic-addled brain.

I did enjoy having a little bit more of the riverbank to explore than I have had this past month. We still have lots of potential for rain and high water. I think on my next trip out here I will explore what the high river has deposited in the western section of the park. I wonder if my ball collection is still around or did that eventually get reclaimed by the river? I guess I will need to wait until next weekend to find out. For now, here is one last image from this trip out at the Falls of the Ohio.

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A Leap Day Pile of Balls

Posted in Absurd, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, deer skull, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, repurposed materials, sense of place, unusual collection, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, deer skull, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flotsam and jetsam, Genius loci, material culture, nature, nature and culture, Ohio River, photography, plastic, plastic in the water, sense of place, site specific art, Toy Balls, unusual collection on March 6, 2016| 2 Comments »

It was Leap Day, February 29 when I went back out to the Falls of the Ohio State Park. For the third consecutive week the Ohio River has been high and all my usual spots are underwater. This post is being written a week later and the river is still covering most of my spots along the riverbank. For the past month, I have been active mainly in the western section of the park.

In the western area of the Falls, the riverbank rises to greet a sliver of woods. Standing on the top most level along the bank, this latest high water we are experiencing is about 8 to 12 feet below your feet, but in most places the river directly butts up to the bank and so there are few “beaches” to stand on and explore. It is during these moments that you can most directly see and feel how a high river can upset and erode the riverbank. I imagine that over time, the river will keep getting wider as the trees are undermined by the waters. As I was searching for new sites and materials to work with…I decided to walk a bit more in the woods than I usually do. Right now is a good time to do this before the vines and mosquitoes make it more difficult and unpleasant.

As I was walking along the muddy paths I couldn’t help noticing how heavy the deer traffic was in this area. Their tracks were everywhere and almost on cue, I came across five antler-less whitetail deer that were moving away from me near the tree line. I liked this little area mostly because I came across small stands of bamboo-like river cane. The old timers say that river cane used to be more plentiful and once helped to define the area more than it does now. Walking along, I saw something white laying on its side and it turned out to be a deer skull from a small doe. In the early days of my Artist at Exit 0 project, it was uncommon to come across deer tracks and years passed before I actually saw one out here. All that has changed now. This is the third deer skull I have found in the park in the last two years. Their presence throughout the Falls of the Ohio has visibly increased which is probably not a good thing for such a small park as this one.

I decided to leave the skull behind for someone else to discover. Finding a suitable tree along the path, I mounted the skull on the knobby remains of a branch to mark this area as being particularly deer favored. It was just a short hike from here to reach the river’s high edge again.

Eventually, I did find a hundred yard or so stretch of muddy bank that I could access and walk around. It was located in a sheltered area where this was a slight bend in the river. The prevailing currents and wind had pushed a large amount of debris against the bank and most of it consisted of wood and bark bits with the now expected plastic garbage mixed in for good measure. I immediately began to find “stuff” and here are a few pictures of my “prized” finds.

Here is something for my Fake Food Collection…a small, plastic drumstick. Over the years, I have found a few of this exact plastic poultry leg and so this is not exactly a unique find. Note the teeth marks probably from the family dog?

Although the spring peepers are starting to be heard in our area…this one will never make a sound.

I now have an impressive collection of found toy hammers and mallets and they are all made of plastic. I need to take a photo of that collection and post it which is another in a line of weirdly specific things I have found out here.

Here are two more “Smiley Faces” that are the latest ones I have found out here. The larger is a volleyball and I’m not sure what the smaller one was intended for? I haven’t looked at it again since I dropped it into the old collecting bag. As I was exploring, what I couldn’t help but notice along this particular stretch of riverbank was how common toy balls of all sizes and sports that I was finding. I decided to pick up all the ones I could access and make a collection of them all. Here is that image.

So, what is your sport? In this motley collection of forty plus river-found balls we have American footballs, soccer balls, basketballs (of course since this is major basketball country), golf balls, tennis balls, playground balls, Styrofoam balls, softballs, a plastic bowling ball, a volleyball, several ball pit balls, and couple of novelty balls, etc… Of course, balls are the perfect floating object since they are round and roll easily and since they are usually inflated with air they are buoyant as well. As the day was starting to get late and I had found all the balls in the area that I could reach…it was time to start for home. I’m looking forward to the river dropping down and the temperatures to begin to rise. Soon the spring bird migration will be passing through and I’m hopeful of seeing a few Rose-breasted grosbeaks and maybe a Scarlet Tanager or two. One more image of my made on the spot ball collection looking back on an interesting day at the Falls of the Ohio.

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Welcome 2016 to the Falls of the Ohio

Posted in animals, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River flooding, Photograpy, Plastic art, sense of place, Styrofoam, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Eastern box turtle, Enor plastic balls, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, lost and found, nature, nature walk, Ohio River flooding, photography, sense of place, Styrofoam on January 2, 2016| 1 Comment »

Happy New Year to everyone out in the blogosphere! Before closing the book on 2015, I want to thank everybody who checked out the old riverblog over the course of the year. According to the WordPress stats wizards, I had people living in 107 different countries stop by to see what I was up to! For an artist whose activities are as localized as mine are…publishing what I do on the world-wide web through this blog is an important part of my artistic activities. It’s been great connecting with other creative minds and people trying to make a difference in their home locations.

As far as 2015 went…I haven’t heard the final statistics on this yet, but we either had our third or fourth wettest year on record. We ended the year with the river at flood stage due to the great volume of rain that went through the Ohio Valley (although thankfully, we aren’t experiencing what’s going on at the moment on the Mississippi River). We have also had an anomalous month of December that had several record-breaking temperatures with highs in the 70 degree range! So much for a White Christmas. These images were made on the first day of the new year and reflect the river actually going down after cresting on December 31. We had two significant bouts of high water early in 2015 and we ended the year at the Falls of the Ohio underwater. The four wettest years on record for our area have all happened since 1996.

With holiday and work obligations temporarily out-of-the-way, I went out to the river on the first day of this new year. The weather was seasonable, meaning it was actually chilly and I needed my gloves, hat, and heavy coat to stay warm. The river level had dropped a little and side stepping the muddy areas I went to see if anything of interest had been stranded at the high water mark. Most all of the areas at the Falls of the Ohio where I usually cache materials and make my art were underwater. Here are a few of the things that I found.

In addition to the usual Styrofoam and plastic containers…I found these three colorful plastic balls. I found them at different places on the riverbank. All three are hollow plastic balls that bear the ENOR stamp. Looking up this company, they are a large toy manufacturer based on the East Coast that specializes in blown plastic toys. In particular, they make the balls for ball pits. Wal-Mart is a big distributor of their toys. Ultimately, I don’t know what I’ll do with them? I suppose they will enter the bags of other found balls that I’m currently storing in my basement awaiting inspiration. The other really interesting item I encountered on this day is 100% natural and here are some images of this find.

Near the Interpretive Center I came across other junk that had washed up with the river. In the shadow of a discarded tire I spotted the distinctive pattern on the shell of an Eastern Box Turtle. I assumed that this turtle was dead and washed into this area with the other river-born stuff and I picked it up to get a better look.

Because of the cold, I was not certain whether or not this turtle was either dead or in a winter torpor? It’s possible that the river washed it here, but then I would assume it would have drowned? Another explanation I thought possible was that this turtle was still active due to the unseasonable warmth we had experienced and when the cold suddenly appeared and being cold-blooded it became trapped in this spot? Normally, box turtles will dig and bury themselves under dirt and leaf debris to overwinter. This guy probably didn’t get the chance to do this when the cold hit. Regardless, I could not decide if this old turtle was still with us? As a precaution, I brought it to the Interpretive Center and presented it to the park’s naturalist who said he would look after it.

I have heard that counting the growth rings on the turtle’s shell is a good gauge of determining its age. This turtle’s shell is worn in places and the rings were difficult to count. One estimate I came up with had it being about 35 years old or so. You can fairly and reliably determine the turtle sex by looking at the plastron which is the shell that protects its belly. If there is a concave area like this turtle has…it’s more than likely a male. The simple explanation here is that to make mating easier…the concave area conforms to the female’s carapace and keeps the male from falling off. Several years ago during another period of flooding, I came across eight different individual box turtles and photographed them. Looking through my old images, I wondered if this was a turtle I had seen before and it was not. I hope that this turtle is indeed alive and can be returned to the park. I would think this would be a great sign for the new year.

As for what else I plan to do this year…well, much depends upon what the river gives me. When the water subsides I will come out and take a look. On January 8, the newly revamped Interpretive Center will open and I will get my first look at the installed 8 foot by 4 foot panel of assembled river found items I was commissioned to create. I hope it all looks great and we shall see. I also have two other opportunities to show my work in the new year and I will give you more details about those shows as they develop. I haven’t ever been aggressive about seeking exhibition opportunities, but rarely turn down an invitation once it presents itself. In closing, I was reminded of this plaque that is fixed to one of the outdoor walls at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center. In so many words, it gives as good an explanation as to why I use this place to site my art. Here’s hoping we all have a memorable and wonderful 2016. See you next time from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Posted in Absurd, animals, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, lost sandals, material culture, nature photography, photography, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, Site specific art, tagged Art, art and the environment, artificial rainbow, artist at exit 0, Big Eyed Click Beetle, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, lost and found, nature, photography, plastic containers, rainbow colors, sense of place, tree stump, willow trees on June 18, 2015| 11 Comments »

Life in a bucket. I’ve seen this before and written about it in an older blog post. Regardless, whenever I encounter something like this I remain amazed at life’s ability to thrive in less than optimum circumstances. A little river mud in an old broken plastic bucket gets colonized by a few windblown grass seeds, add a little rainfall and sunshine and life does the rest. Well, some life can do this and some can’t. The future will be determined by the life that can adapt and be resilient in the face of adversity. Walking on the fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio I wonder about our chances for success living on a planet that we have diminished to suit our own ends. I have no doubt that whatever the future holds, life will find a way. Whether or not that includes us remains to be seen.

On that jolly note I introduce my latest two projects! I got up fairly early in the morning and got a head start on the heat. By the early afternoon, I was whipped, exhausted, and wet from the humidity trapped in the local vegetation. Summer is officially upon us. It’s interesting how many conversations I’ve had this year with people similar in age to me who have remarked that as the years pass by their tolerance for the heat and humidity decreases. This was one of those days I could commiserate with them! As I was walking along the Falls landscape, I noticed an area that seemed to have a good supply of plastic containers and decided on the spot to do another petroleum rainbow piece. This is how I started out, literally beating the bushes for containers of different sizes, colors, and shapes. The material lying on the driftwood was easy to access, but in other places the vines were beginning to cover and camouflage what was under their urgent greenness.

I started out collecting various plastic jugs that originally held contents of one gallon or greater…hence “big jug”. I soon expanded that as the need for particular shades of colors became a priority. I would have liked to use more “orange”, but couldn’t find enough plastic containers in this area that day that were that color. Still, I managed a small sliver of “orange” to mark the transition from “red” to “yellow”.

“Big Jug Rainbow” is situated under a stressed willow tree that is bent over from the weight of lots of driftwood that was deposited in its canopy by flood waters. A nice verdant cave was formed and it felt like a good framing element for this piece. Here is what it looked like from the other side of the tree.

The willow trees in this habitat are twisted up and have lots of character. They remind me of the forms you find in bonsai trees, except their size is obviously much larger. In a past post, I’ve mentioned how this area’s beavers like to prune off small branches and eat the bark. This helps shape the trees. This year, I can see in dramatic fashion another element that contributes to the trees’ overall forms. The weight of the deposited wood bends the branches down and the willow continues to grow under this burden. The driftwood will remain in the tree until the river rises or the wind knocks the deposited logs down.

Bleaching, exposed driftwood atop a willow tree with my “Big Jug Rainbow” under its influence. Happy with this piece, I collected my bag and walking stick and headed further under the trees seeking shade and relief from the sun. Along the way, I was delighted to run into one of my favorite insects found at the Falls of the Ohio.

This is the Eastern Eyed Click Beetle or Big Eyed Click Beetle, (Alaus oculatus). This is one of the larger beetles you will find in our area and this is the largest of our click beetles. The biggest specimens are nearly two inches long or roughly 45mm in length. They have this wonderful, cryptic bird-dropping coloring. The eyespots on the pronatum or thorax are dramatic and large. The females lay their eggs in or near rotting wood (in abundance here) and I’m sure to come across these slow flyers at least a couple of times per season. Last year, I was startled when one landed on the back of my head and got tangled in my hair. It gave me a momentary fright to have some then unknown large insect crawling on my head. Fortunately, they don’t bite. The larvae on the other hand will eat other insects they encounter.

As has been my recent custom, as I walk along I collect any lost flip-flops that I find. At day’s end, I find a place to make something with the day’s finds. I came across this table-like tree stump that seemed like an invitation to do something with. I emptied the contents of my collecting bag and created “Stump Flower”.

The circular form in the center I believe is a sand toy? I found it laying nearby and thought it helped suggest a flower head. I think as I return to many of the places where I’ve made these flip-flop projects…I will re-gather them and perhaps recycle them into a more complex form. At day’s end, the walk back to my vehicle took a lot of effort. I did go by my “Big Jug Rainbow” piece and took one last image of it from some distance. You can barely see it through all the leafage, but it is there in all its artificial glory. That bottle of warm water I had stashed under the car seat sure tasted good! Thanks to everybody for stopping by…until next time from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Muddy Falls and Galerie Hertz

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and the environment, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged Art, driftwood, exhibition, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsam, found objects, Galerie Hertz, material culture, nature, Ohio River flood, photography, plastic bottles, repurposed objects, sense of place, site specific, Styrofoam on March 28, 2015| 5 Comments »

The Ohio River remained higher than expected and was bolstered by a few days of rain. I visited the Falls of the Ohio last weekend during a moment when the water level had dropped just enough to reveal a muddy shoreline with its accompanying line of stranded debris. The places in the park I like to work and visit were still underwater.

I put on my “Falls shoes” which were already muddy and that I keep outside on the front porch of my house and headed for the river. As usual, I brought a collecting bag and camera with me and ventured forth to see what there was to see. In places, you could tell that the river with its water-born logs had acted as a battering ram and pretty much leveled the vegetation nearest to the water.

The silt and clay are both very fine and sticky when wet. I gingerly step on wood and other debris to keep from sinking ankle-deep in this quagmire. I enjoy looking at the rippling wave patterns that the water creates. I call this “river shivers” and imagine if the riverbank could display “goose-flesh” that it would look something like this. And speaking of geese…

…the flock of Canada geese I photographed the previous week, left their footprints everywhere in the mud. Their friend, the ex-patriot domestic goose, was still hanging out with them.

Of course, nearly every place you looked, you could see man-made trash and driftwood. Much of this material has originated far from here. When things finally dry out enough for a more thorough exploration, I’m expecting to find all kinds of examples of our material culture washed into the park.

Interspersed with the bottles are lots of other plastic items and various foam-based garbage including Styrofoam…my primary sculptural material. This is just a detail of one small area. Already I’m seeing hundreds of plastic drinking bottles. I’ve been asked on more than one occasion if I’m ever afraid that I might poison myself or get an infection from something that I’ve found out here by the river. My short answer is yes. One needs to be concerned, however, I don’t press my luck with anything that looks at all questionable. I guess I do place a lot of trust that the billions of gallons that constitutes the Ohio River does in effect “wash” the stuff that I use. So far, knock on wood, I’ve never had an adverse reaction after working out here for more than a decade. The Falls of the Ohio State Park is a public space and what I encounter is also what the public encounters.

Here’s the trunk of my car after this brief foray to the river. This may be hard for some of you to believe, but I’m actually very selective now. These days, I only carry back to my home work space, the “cream of the crop”. I prefer to make my artworks at the river, but will also take materials home to “hedge my bets” and for workshop purposes. The larder I had created at my “UFO” (Unknown Floating Object) outdoor studio is now long gone and I wonder if that circular metal platform is still around…or has it finally floated away too?

While temporally stymied by water and mud, I have the opportunity to interact with the local art world in a more usual way. Galerie Hertz which represents my art in Louisville opened a collage and assemblage group show. Billy and his partner Tom have been important players in our city’s cultural life. They have been rightly credited for creating an arts district on Market Street through the activities of their renovated galleries. Each new space the pair opened was an upgrade of a building that needed some help. This gentrification has attracted other galleries and dealers, bars, restaurants, and several home décor stores along Market Street. In typical Galerie Hertz fashion, Billy and Tom have moved on to a different location and their current gallery where I’m showing my works is now on South Preston Street. How often is it the case that creative folks move into formerly neglected areas and bring them to back to life?

Among the works I have in this group show is this piece entitled “Moon Star”. I made this piece at the river, but felt is could use a bit more embellishment. I added many found bicycle tire reflectors and some river-polished glass around the head. When the light hits it just right, the reflectors just glow.

Through the miracle of “Styro-dermy”, I saved the Polar Beaver I encountered recently. To get this piece to sit the way I want it to…I have embedded three, large, lead fishing weights into the tail to counterbalance the body.

This diminutive figure is called “The Harbinger of Spring” and I created him last year at this time. I also wrote an accompanying story that helped explain how winter transitions to spring. Although I like to think that many of my Styrofoam-bodied sculptures can hold their own as freestanding objects…they are also relics and artifacts of a site specific performance that happens out at the river and is additionally documented through photographs and stories. At the moment, the sun is shining, but it is also cold at the river. Tomorrow is another day, another day for the river to recede and the mud to dry. I think I will get up early and give it a go. I will let you know what I discover at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Posts Tagged ‘flotsam and jetsam’

River Report at the End of the Year

On Katinka’s Tour

At Hidden Hill Nursery and Sculpture Garden

The Crying Indian

Easter Day Odds and Ends

Riverbank Projects on a Grey Morning

A Leap Day Pile of Balls

Welcome 2016 to the Falls of the Ohio

Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Muddy Falls and Galerie Hertz

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