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Posts Tagged ‘Ohio River’

Gone Bowling

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, recycled art, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , on April 9, 2010| 4 Comments »

After the foothills of central Texas, it’s nice to be in the Derby City again.  All along the 2000 mile road trip it was amazing to watch Spring burst forth along the highway.  It occurred to me while I was away, that this is also my one year anniversary of the “Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog”.  I have noticed from other blogs, that their authors frequently feel compelled to say something about the experience and I will attempt to do the same in a few words because I think the  readers this blog has attracted would rather see me go bowling!

Initially, I thought it would be fun to blog through a year’s worth of seasons and move on to the next thing.  But what happened is that I found myself looking forward to posting!  For what I’m doing out at the river, this seems a good medium for sharing my experiences and discoveries and is an alternative to exhibiting my art in the usual ways.  I have had gut check moments when I questioned my motives for blogging, but since my expectations weren’t too high…I haven’t been too disappointed.  I have had a couple of opportunities come my way to present my work and that has been fun.  The coolest thing, however, is reflected in the comments that friends and visitors have left along the way and I have looked forward to reading and replying to them!  To everyone who took the time to bother…you have my heart-felt thanks!!

I have to laugh looking at the photo above because it represents my fifth or sixth attempt to hit the “pins” and record an image of the action.  Normally, I’m a decent shot, but I didn’t take into account the sloping nature of the riverbank.  As I rolled the ball and looked through the camera, the ball would swerve harmlessly away!  It wasn’t a strike, but I was able to pick the spare up on the next ball.  My pins are various fluid-filled plastic bottles I came across in the vicinity of the blue plastic toy bowling ball I found.  Over the years, I have found other genuine bowling balls and a couple of them are among my favorite finds. 

If you were wondering if bowling balls float…the answer is yes!  Their cores are composed of this dense foam that gives them some buoyancy in the water.  Sometimes when I find an object, their immediate identity might remain a mystery until I have fully checked the object out.  In the first photo, it might not be apparent that these are bowling balls.  But, if I flip them over….

…then you can see the characteristic three finger holes drilled into the ball.  What really blows me away with these balls is their condition.  I can’t imagine too many things tougher to destroy than one of these balls, but this is exactly what the river did!  I imagine that over the years, these bowling balls must have bounced off rocks, logs, and barges on their way to the sands of the Falls of the Ohio.  Here are a few more shots of these amazing balls.

The red exterior of this ball has always reminded me of some hard candy you might find in a dish at your grandma’s house.  I especially like how this ball has weathered.  It has a nice flat spot on one side that I guess was created by abrasion in the sand?  I also like the balance between outer covering and inner core.  Judging from the size of the finger holes, this was probably a child’s ball or someone with a small hand.  The last ball is amazing because the remains of the finger holes create this haunting face image complete with an ear off to the side.  I have seen figurative American Indian art with similar facial expression.  I also find the crack that runs through this ball to be an attractive element.  Again, it’s a testament to the power of river and the amount of energy it can exert on an object.  Through the years I have found several bowling balls, but I have only kept these two.

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The Abandoned Raft

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, watershed, tagged , , , on March 31, 2010| 2 Comments »

Here’s a story that came out of the recent high water we just experienced.  The Ohio River can be an unpredictable element in our landscape.  One moment it seems blue and peaceful and in a matter of hours can rise, be muddy, and turbulent.  I was walking along the edge of the water and I came across this unexpected sight.

Washing in and out with the river waves was this bright yellow raft!  As I was watching, an especially large wave drove the raft high upon the sand and I approached to check it out.  I remember wondering who lost this and how far had it traveled from its home?  Could it’s owner be nearby?  I kept walking along the shoreline and finding other bits of flotsam and jetsam to put into my collecting bag for later use.  That’s when I came across what I believe to have been the raft’s occupant.  It was a sad discovery.

It was a little mud baby and the rough water must have pitched him out of the raft.  With the treacherous currents and logs bashing about in the waves, he probably was swiftly overwhelmed.  He only had this scrap of cloth left on his body.  I pulled back and took this last image of where I found him.

I can recall as a kid, a description about dinosaurs that always stuck with me.  Despite the immense size some of them reached, their gray matter was rather miniscule.  In fact, the comparison that was given was that their brains were the size of walnuts.  I find walnuts all the time by the river.  So, I have started using them regularly as an indicator of scale with some of the objects I find.  Here’s an example of this using the yellow raft.

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Spring Singers

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , on March 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Since the river washed away my old studio site, I have started two fresh ones.  The studio situated by the roots of a fantastic cottonwood tree is in the park’s western section and is pictured above.  I will show you the second site in a future post.  My studios are very informal affairs and have more to do with stockpiling materials for future use.  Try as I might, I can’t carry this junk everywhere I go and so I need places to park it.  Of course, anybody is free to use whatever I place there and sometimes people take me up on it.  This western studio is where I made the figure with the gavel in my last post.

To reach the western studio is a longer walk from the Interpretive Center’s parking lot and receives fewer people.  That, however, doesn’t make it immune from the visits from the “Smashers”.  Years ago, that was the name my son Michael came up with for the kids that feel compelled to break every glass bottle they find in the park.  On more than one occasion, they also destroy my sculptures.  Such was the fate of the subject in my last post…the “Smashers” got’em.  That figure was so utterly destroyed that all I found were a few scraps of polystyrene and the toy hammer it was carrying.  I try not to dwell on it too much.  There’s always the next piece to make and the sun is shining today and spring is near and life is good.

The birds are feeling it and soon the migrants will be winging it this way from points deep south.  Today I was serenaded by Carolina Wrens and Northern Cardinals.  I saw my first Red-winged Blackbird of the new year and a Belted Kingfisher flew by my studio.  The trees are beginning to show the buds that will lead to blossoms and leaves.  A stray fly lands on my hand.  It has been a long winter and spring will be more than welcomed.

I quickly gathered enough sticks and Styrofoam to make three small figures.  I imagined that like the birds I had heard, these guys are also singing.  I moved them around a bit, but in the end, decided that I liked this one image the best.  I left them in the roots of another cottonwood tree and went home.  On the way back to my car, I came across a tangle of driftwood and found a child’s broken plastic chair mixed into the lot.  The brilliant red color caught my attention and I offer it as a parting gift to you.

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Flotsam and Jetsam, part one

Posted in Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, unusual collection, watershed, tagged , , , , , , on January 31, 2010| 4 Comments »

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

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We Two Together

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , on January 28, 2010| 4 Comments »

Sometimes the river looks made of light more than water.  I thought of that many times on this day.  I had already made two figures and it was time to turn for home.  I posed my latest creations next to each other and in the same area I have worked in for months.  I found a child’s life jacket and placed it around Penguin Boy.  For his taller uncle, I secured him to a willow tree using a stringer to hold fish.  This will keep him from falling over.  I also found a blue plastic container and placed that in his hand.  The contrast between the orange of the vest and the blue of the jug added a colorful note on an otherwise somber day.  I’ll be curious to see all this in brighter light if “they” make it that far.

And the two together…

Working around in my studio site with its odd assortment of Styrofoam chunks and wiggly, expressive sticks and roots… I came across the gift left by a visitor who commented here, several posts a go.  I found the squirt gun and will have to think of a way to incorporate it in something interesting!  Thanks for the tokens!

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Penguin Boy

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , on January 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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

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

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

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

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Faces for Facebook

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , on January 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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

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

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

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

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Nice Ice

Posted in art and environment, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, tagged , , , on January 17, 2010| 1 Comment »

Presently, the ice and snow are gone at the Falls of the Ohio.  A warming trend the past few days has pretty much taken care of that.  Over the last several years, snow at the Falls has been a relatively scarce event and we have been limited to a couple dustings now and then.  It will be interesting to see how this winter plays out.  Will there be more of the white stuff or was that it for this year?  Certainly, there is this love/hate relationship with snow.  In Kentuckiana, we really don’t receive much snowfall, but when it’s in the forecast there is all kinds of anxiety that manifests itself in bizarre behavior.  The suggestion of an inch or two of snow can cause a run on certain grocery items and the local school systems fret about whether they should close or not!  I confess that I like the snow.  I appreciate its transformative power in an otherwise drab and dull season.  I also like that it can cause you to pause and reflect on what’s important and that’s beneficial.

My last few posts have shown some of my artwork in relationship to ice formations at the Falls.  Following are some other shots I made out here that I thought were interesting images.  Water defines this planet and to see it behaving in its frozen state is a beautiful experience.  Many of the best formations occur closest to the river and hang on the smaller willow trees that exist there.

Don’t these shapes look like ice “jellyfish”?  I marvel at how these formations build up.  I’m guessing that these shapes are created from several things happening in quick succession.  Melting that occurs from the sun shining on the ice higher in the tree causes a drip to run down these narrow branches.  At night, the fog and mist generated from the warmer rivers coats the terminal end of the branch and then refreezes.  The ice finds it easier to build up on preexisting ice.  Anyway,  I like the way it plays with light!

Here are a few pictures of ice-covered willows near the river’s edge.  It’s been awhile since the river itself was frozen and is something I’ve witnessed only a couple of times.  It’s not a routine event.  If memory serves me, the last time that happened was 1996?  Maybe someone out there remembers?

That car tire has been half-buried in the mud for over a year!  Here’s another tire I came across.  This one, however, is coated in ice creating a frozen circle.

There are a few months more of winter a head of us and so if it snows again…I will be sure to come back out here with my camera.  I’ll end with this last image of snow covering the driftwood at the Falls of the Ohio.

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Nature Calling

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, birding, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , on January 2, 2010| 3 Comments »

At the beginning of the New Year, I was warm and cozy and in no hurry to do anything.  And then, the telephone rang.  Through my hand set I could hear the sound of the river and the wind blowing through the tree limbs.  After dressing, I grabbed one of my collecting bags and my camera and I jumped into my car.  By now, my family knows I’m crazy, I know I’m crazy, and so little is said of the matter of my leaving anymore.  I’m pretty well bundled up since it’s somewhere in the high teens on this first day of 2010.

It may be cold, but at least the sun is out and this has an enormous cheering effect on me.  I decided to check out a place that I don’t investigate as often, the riverbank just east of the dam and bridge.  The prevailing winds and currents do push materials along this shoreline, some of which beach here until the next flooding.  Among the many items I found this morning include an especially large and nicely shaped hunk of Styrofoam.  I set it on end and took a photograph of this polystyrene stelae with the river and bridge.  Even I have  a hard time guessing how big this hunk looks in the photograph and so I dragged it back to my car and created this other image!

Well, here’s the crazy part I alluded to earlier.  I decided to take this big piece home and amazingly, it just fit across the back seat of my Honda Civic.  I have other materials cached at home in our incredibly  shrinking basement.  As of now, I don’t have a particular idea for it, but it will come.  After wrestling with the Styrofoam block, I drove to my usual spot to check out the scene from there and to see how older works were faring.

There was a lot more ice just downriver from the dam and coated the willows closest to the water.  There is also more wind and turbulence which I can feel on the exposed areas on my face.  It’s not quite “Elmer Fudd” hat weather, but very close.  I reserve that unflattering head-gear for temps below zero.  The television weather prophets are saying my area will be chilling in the twenties for highs the rest of the week.  With hope, this will be the coldest it gets this year.  Last year’s winter, with the great exception of the infamous ice storm, was a comparatively easy and warm one.

I looked up two old friends and they were still hanging in there.  Lorraine had slumped over, but it was easy to prop her back up to join her beau, Pot Belly in standing guard over my spot under the willows.  I wandered around and very few birds were to be seen or expected.  I did run into a small grouping of drabbly-plumed American Goldfinches and stray Song Sparrows and Mallard ducks.  Oh, I did photograph a rare hummingbird and came across another interesting nest, however, in the interest of future posts…I will withhold those for now, but check back later this week.  I did come across one other image I recorded that is a bit more ironic than unusual and is not intended to be an endorsement of this product.  I like my beer with a lot more body, and flavor, etc… Happy New Year everybody!

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A Close Call

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, nature, Ohio River, Originality, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , on December 24, 2009| 8 Comments »

The Ohio River rose and just as quickly receded.  Logs were left to dangle on top of the dam’s walls stranded there by the retreating waters.  Along the shoreline, new deposits of driftwood are laid out in parallel rows and tell a story of where this wooden wave crashed before relenting.

I’m always amazed at how quickly the water backs down.  Higher on shore, you will find where most of the bigger logs and limbs were trapped.  And, as the river draws back into its deeper channels, the lighter flotsam that was able to ride the waves is deposited about mid-bank in a debris field that features a lot of plastic.

As high water events go…this one was very mild.  I had no real idea how high the water would go when I blogged about the rising river.  A few more feet up the bank and the water would have reached my spot.  Here’s a shot showing the extant of the flooding.  Look at the color of the wood for the clue.  All the newest material is blondish-brown in color, while the older wood has had a chance to oxidize a greyish color from the summer sun.

This time I was lucky and my collection of Styrofoam and sculptures remained in place.  I checked out Pot Belly and Lorraine and they were pretty much as I left them with the exception of one detail.  Someone gave Lorraine a penis!  I guess they didn’t know she’s a lady…I guess you would have had to read my mind on that one since I didn’t provide any other clues as to their gender.  Most of the time that doesn’t strike me as being important in these pieces.  Here again is the happy couple high and dry.

I did make a quick, newer figure from the latest Ohio River junk.  My inspiration for this guy came from the green hand that says “Clap for the Lord”.  He isn’t a particularly handsome guy, but I am thankful that my site didn’t get washed away this time.  I don’t think I was ready to let it go especially when I still had so much material to use.

Just a few days a go, much of the northern and eastern sections of the U.S. were buried under heavy snow.  When that eventually melts, it will swell the streams, and creeks that are a part of the Ohio River’s watershed.  When that happens the river will rise here again.  How far it will get this time is uncertain.  It’s now officially winter and periodic flooding has been known to happen.  I know in my heart of hearts that the river will swallow up my studio site and I will have to establish a new base.  At least, I will have the consolation of discovering what the river has left behind.

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