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Hoser

Posted in Absurd, animals, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

The Ohio River continues to rise because the sky continues to rain.  This flood will be one for the record books…perhaps in the top ten when it’s all said and done.  But who knows when that will be?  The weatherman hasn’t been very encouraging of late.  The timing of this flood is especially bad because it overlaps with the Kentucky Derby Festival and its two weeks of partying and activities which culminates with the most famous horse race in the world.  The additional water will keep the tourists away.

These images were taken just a couple of days a go and now the river is even higher.  In the City of Louisville, some of the most powerful pumps outside Holland are working around the clock pumping water from the low-lying areas.  Streets have been closed and the flood gates are up.  For the people who live nearest to the river…they have packed up and left a few days a go.  By now, the water has reached the roofs of their homes.  There’s nothing more that can be done.  It’s sit tight and see how much more rain will come and how high the river will rise.

My son Adam was curious to see the extent of the flooding and so we visited the Falls of the Ohio.  The familiar wooden steps that lead to the river bank were now half way underwater.

We watched a box turtle flushed from its home in the underbrush swimming to higher ground.  Fortunately, it received an assist in the form of currents pushing it to land where it was able to escape drowning.  Watching this greatly affected my son who has a tender heart when it comes to all animals.  He really gets upset when the nature shows on television become too graphic. He doesn’t understand that life feeds on other life and that this has been the way of the world for a very long time.  This flood has also affected my creative routine at least by the water.  I’m forced to hopscotch back and forth between events in time which I think is a healthy thing in my life.  I was beginning to feel a little too linear anyway.  So, here’s another Styrofoam project I made sandwiched between the last flood of a couple of weeks a go and now.  This project is also now a memory remembered by these images.

I really thought the previous inundation would be it for the year.  And so I set up shop atop this immense pile of wood and explored what was mixed in with all the natural debris.  Among the “treasures” was this toy gas hose…but that’s not all that I found!  Here’s something unusual too.

I set it up to help orient it for the photograph.  It’s what’s left of a taxidermed deer head.  The tanned skin that would have been stretched around it is now gone, but the remnants of the deer’s actual skull and broken antlers are screwed into the molded foam form.  This is another object that exists at the intersection of the natural and the artificial which I find curiously to be another sign of the times we live in.  When this trophy was intact, it probably was praised for its life-likeness.

I also picked up this Styrofoam fragment of what I’m guessing was perhaps a Halloween novelty?  Amazingly, the little skull image survived.  I found another human bone reference out here on the wood pile.  It’s a miniature pelvis made out of plastic.  Luckily, I have never found the real deal and probably would freak out if I did.  Here’s that hip bone and a second image with some other fun stuff I picked up including one of the smallest and cutest squirt guns I’ve seen.

Sitting on a huge log, I started getting comfortable on my new spot.  I thought I could last here until the summer heat drove me under the willows.  I began to gather materials to make sculptures with like I had done with my previous plein air “studios”.  Mother Nature was providing all the material I needed to keep me and this project going for a long time.  Here’s my Styro-cache with its river-polished foam.

It’s all gone down river now, but before that happened I made one other figure out here.  I called him “Hoser” and set him up next to the “Danger” figure.  First, I started with making a head.  The eyes are old fishing floats.

I felt very meditative in this setting.  I could see the skyline of a city with its proximity to nature and it made me speculate on how it all was going to turn out?  Would we eventually strike some kind of working balance with the planet or was this a taste of what was coming or even worse?  I would walk around my wood pile looking for a stick or branch I could use for a limb to help blow life into this Styro-man.  This is how he eventually turned out.

With gasoline approaching four dollars a gallon I decided to put the fake gas pump nozzle and hose to good use.  I strategically placed this object into the figure’s polystyrene body more as a reference to the fact that here was another resource that we pissed away.

I located “Hoser” near the “Danger is My Middle Name” figure, took my photographs, and walked away.  That was the last I was to see of them.  Within days, the river started to rise more from rain that fell north of here and then it started to rain in earnest in the Ohio River Valley.  That was two weeks plus…it’s still raining and the river keeps on rising and the adventure continues.

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Lotto Land

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2011| 5 Comments »

It’s raining as I write this post.  It has seemingly rained the entire month of April in my area resulting in a swollen Ohio River.  I think we are on another collision course with the record books for most precipitation during April.  Only once this month have I been able to access what passes for our normal river shore line and it was very muddy!  We have had tornado warnings and flooding this Spring.  The following adventure occurred between the two episodes of high water we have experienced.  I was walking along the Woodland Loop Trail at the Falls of the Ohio State Park when I was stopped in my tracks by this hand painted sign the river deposited during the first flood.  Is it another way that the universe is trying to communicate to us?  Is nature saying we are taking a big chance with our treatment of the environment?  I wonder who will win and what the prizes are?  Care to buy a ticket?  I decided to pass, but there were plenty of consolation prizes all along my walk courtesy of man and a too high river.  Since this is Indiana, I thought it was fitting to find one of these.

For thousands of years the Falls was home to a sizeable population of native people.  Now, you are more likely to find one of these.  Another piece of Americana I came across I added to my fake food collection.

What can be more iconic than a fake cheeseburger?  What’s sad is that this isn’t the only one I’ve ever found out here.  I even have found a couple of plastic crinkle-cut french fries too.  Let me see if I can find a picture of one…hold on…yes, I also found this recently.

Moving along the trail, the unmistakable smell of skunk kept getting stronger and stronger in the humid air.  It’s possible that one of these animals drowned in the flood and its carcass was deposited here.  Or, one of the many birds of prey could have taken it.  At the odor’s epicenter, I discovered two species of vultures polishing off what’s left of the unfortunate skunk.  There were three black vultures and one large turkey vulture taking turns at the miserable remains.  Here’s one of the black vultures keeping an eye out while his friends gnosh.  I could see them around the tree trunks.

The dominant bird here was a big turkey vulture which is unusual from what I have observed at the Falls of the Ohio.  I normally see them retiring when the black vultures arrive.  This bird was the last to leave the skunk and the first to return.  Here he is giving me the “eye” from a low hanging branch.  As I approached, he joined the other vultures in a tall tree with a vantage point of me and the skunk. 

All that was left of the skunk were a few innards and its skull.  Perhaps the vultures will eat this too?  That skunk odor was so pervasive and offensive, I’m amazed that these vultures could stomach this, but then again, they have probably had worse meals.  Not to far from the birds, I did find a big piece of Styrofoam that was washed into a bottomland area.  Using what I could find nearby, I constructed this unnamed figure, photographed it, and kept moving down the trail.  Where I left this figure was in the center of a trail loop that curled back towards the Interpretive Center.  Here are images of this improvised piece.  It was an especially pitted and worn hunk of polystyrene.

I circled around and could see the sculpture from another angle.  Funny thing is that while I write this…I know it is no longer standing and was probably swept away again by the Ohio River for parts unknown.  It occurred to me recently that this month is the riverblog’s second anniversary.  As long as the river keeps things interesting, I will try to do the same through these posts.  I have many other images of recently found junk and once this more recent flooding subsides…no doubt will be able to fill this virtual collecting bag.  My parting image is the last picture I took of this short-lived artwork.

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Danger is My Middle Name

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2011| 7 Comments »

It’s a wonderful spring day on the debris heap.  On the old bridge several diesel trains have been carrying their vital shipments back and forth across the Ohio River.  These trains are also a noisy element here when they are crossing.  Among the other sounds you can count on hearing are the aircraft about to land at the local airport and the sound of the river flowing under the gates.

The flooding we experienced a few short weeks a go has left a lot of debris deposited at the Falls.  During the height of the water, the area I’m exploring today was a watery gyre of spinning driftwood, junk, and plastic jugs and bottles.  It’s dry now and in the eastern section of the park under the railroad bridge.  You can’t miss it because in places it must be 12 to 15 feet tall.  It’s all interwoven logs and debris and it can be very treacherous walking here.  You always must be careful where you place your foot and weight because it might just be an air pocket covered in paper and leaves that can cause you to fall into a hole.  It would be no fun walking out of here with an injury.  I usually have a long walking stick with me to help me maintain my balance walking over the backs of logs.

If you are careful, you can explore this wooden mound safely.  It presents several interesting vantage points for photography.

Naturally, I’m also on the look out for interesting objects that have come to rest here.  My collecting sack soon fills with mostly plastic artifacts.

This wooden mound has waves of its own.  It has peaks and valleys and you can sense how the water moved from the artifacts that were swept along and how and where they came to rest.  The lightest stuff like plastic bottles are good indicators of how far the margins extend and where drainage occurred.

After exploring the area and collecting materials, I soon had another temporary studio going.  This time I’m not finding any huge sections and chunks of Styrofoam around.  There are, however, lots of smaller pieces absolutely everywhere.  I gathered these pieces up and soon I was making a figure to take advantage of this riverscape configuration at the Falls of the Ohio.

I found a spot with a good view of the city and made this guy.  His name comes from the spot where I left him.  I can feel that my face has received more sun than unusual and since I didn’t bring any sun block…decide that it’s time to go back home.

The place is marked by a “Danger” buoy that drifted in with all the other debris.

Around “Danger” are all kinds of other junk mixed among the driftwood.  Tires are ubiquitous as are all the plastic containers and playground balls.  Among the natural materials are wood (limb and lumber), nuts, dried reeds, and lots of shredded tree bark.

I’ve been busy cataloguing with photographs all the small items I found and collected from the Falls over the years.  I have posts to come of that material. I also have several other figures and adventures to relate to you.  With this project you have no choice, but to work with the river and I have been trying to play catch up where and when I can.  The next expedition takes place in the western section of the park.  There I will attempt to capture images of an unusual animal rumored to have been seen there recently.  Wish me luck!

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Double Turtle Day

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2011| 6 Comments »

This is a post from the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  The high waters from the recent flood have taken their sweet time abating.  I slogged through a lot of mud, but have to admit I had a good time exploring.  Along the way, I could see odd items that had been snagged by the trees and here they will stay until they decay or another flood carries them away.  Here’s a wooden stand of some kind that found refuge in the branches of this tree.

And here is part of a hurricane fence that the river deposited high and dry onto another tree.  Nearly every where I go I can find (mostly plastic bags of all sizes) stuff caught by the tree branches.  Sometimes this items “decorate” their new homes for years to come.

I’m always on the look out for signs of life.  On this trip I came across a flock of American Coots, but they swam away before I could take one decent image of them.  In the soft mud all around me, were the tracks of the various small animals that call this place home.  I believe these are tracks made by raccoons next to this plastic baby toy that floated in with the river.

Investigating the other debris, I nearly missed seeing this Eastern box turtle.  He looked like an old-timer and because it was still a cool day…he was moving slowly.  This allowed me to take several pictures and I had a great opportunity to check him out.  Here is a series of images of it.

The weird part is that earlier in the day, I came across a completely different kind of turtle.  This one is usually found in close proximity to sand and has a penchant for children’s company.  While the previous turtle embodied substance and image…this one is all image.

I also came across my “Mud Duck” which was hanging out in an area that was much drier than before.

This duck and all the genuine birds and small animals better look out this spring and summer because the feral cat population keeps increasing.  On my way back to my vehicle, I came by this site near the Interpretive Center.  Frankly, this “blew me away”.  There were two picnic tables and each one had the equivalent of a large bag of dry cat food spread under each table.  I’m sure this person has a kind heart and means well, but I don’t see how this helps the other wildlife in the park.  Well fed cats still catch birds and hopefully they will also catch the rats that I’m sure this scene also attracts.  I’ll end with these two images, but will be posting more post-flood pictures very soon.  Until then…

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Mud Duck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Plein Air Studio

Posted in Art, art and environment, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2011| 6 Comments »

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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Ohio Valley Sphinx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Skippy’s Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Architect of Ice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bottoms up everyone, till next time!

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The Orange Curtain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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