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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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Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Clarksville, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, Ohio River flooding, Photograpy, tagged Art, art made from plastic, artist at exit 0, found materials, Fred Flintstone baby bottle, material culture, nature, photography, plastic butterfly, plastic containers, plastic rainbow, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific artworks on February 8, 2016| 4 Comments »

Beyond the Woodland Loop Trail in the western section of the Falls of the Ohio is where today’s river adventure finds me. It has been many months since I last visited this side of the park. I have been looking forward to walking on the driftwood that accumulates on this riverbank. As always, I’ve got my trusty walking stick and collecting bag with me. It’s time to find what there is to find and make something from that. Right away, I found this plastic butterfly or moth (fireworks perhaps?) and enjoyed taking several images of it juxtaposed with the riverbank landscape. Just a quick look around and I can see lots of plastic and polystyrene to potentially use. I will also keep my eyes open for a good site to do one of my plastic arrangements that I have been having fun with of late.

I was fairly confident that I would find as much plastic debris on this shoreline as I had found in the eastern section of the park. That would prove to be correct and I brought an extra collecting bag along to help with the gathering process. I have been enjoying organizing the colorful plastic bottles and containers that I find into mostly chromatic and rainbow-inspired arrangements. The driftwood and sand out here is unified in coloring presenting a monochromatic landscape where bright, colorful plastic notes sing out among all these lost trees. You soon realize as you sort out the plastic from the driftwood, how much of our material culture is intermixed into everything else.

After walking the high water line for a couple of hours, I dumped all the colorful plastic I had collected onto the sand. I thought I had picked a good location that was between the water and the riverbank. I picked up a nice plastic milk crate along the way to assist with the gathering. I notice that I usually pick up intact items preferring them over plastic bits and pieces…although, I will use fragments too especially if they are a hard to come by color. Most all of the plastic bottles and containers I find have had their labels washed off by the river. I put a lot of trust in the cleaning power of millions of gallons of water.

Using the patterns and intervals of driftwood that the river had previously laid down here as a supporting structure where today’s found plastic is sorted by color and staged. Here is where you might find out that you picked up more green bottles than yellow or that purple was that day’s hard to find color.

Here’s a view looking eastward with a bit of the skyline of Louisville suggested through the distant trees. From my experience, fewer people visit this section of the park and many who do often prove to be residents of Clarksville which is just over the flood wall. Let’s show a few more images of how this piece rounded into shape.

I like the big wooden beam lying parallel to the plastic. Not all the driftwood out here is of the wild variety. I find lumber cut-offs and planed planks of all kinds and have used them in my art as well. These shots were taken on a beautiful end of the month day where we had a respite from the cold and grayness.

There was one large blue plastic drum that was buried in the sand and had water in it as well. I didn’t like how it intruded into these pictures and so tried to take it away. Well, it was much too heavy for one person to life out of the sand. Fortunately, among the few people I did see on this day were old river rat friends who gave me a hand with this. The blue drum nearly folded in half takes its position at the end of the line.

I hung around and admired all the bright colors as they revealed themselves in a setting sun. I think this is the most complex plastic assemblage (as far as variety and number of individual pieces used goes) that I have made thus far. I will go ahead and tell you that this work no longer exists except as digital images. Over the past week, we had strong rain storms that went through the Ohio Valley resulting in a high river. Although the rains didn’t affect us directly, all the water that was dropped into the watershed caused it to inundate many of the familiar places on the riverbank that I like to work. The river has been unpredictable of late and I have had at least three new projects washed away. As I walked home, I did find an interesting bottle that I walked over before. I’m fairly sure this is Fred Flintstone based on the diamond pattern on his “garment”. A quick inquiry over the internet yielded some results. This find was originally part of a four plastic baby bottle set that featured Fred, Barney, and their kids Pebbles and BamBam. This vintage baby product was more than likely manufactured between 1977 and 1984! I wonder if its possible for my find to be that old? Judging from the wear and tear and severe fading…that’s a distinct possibility. Happy with my new find…I dropped it into my collecting bag. I think it is the unusual items I come across that make this such a fun way to spend time at the river. With the sun going down, the temperatures are getting cooler…time to go home. Until next time from an ever-changing Falls of the Ohio.

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More Fun with Plastic Jugs

Posted in art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, driftwood, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, Petroleum Rainbow, plastic containers, plastic rainbow, Rainbow, sense of place on June 28, 2015| 3 Comments »

Balancing on the spine of a water-soaked log, I crossed over to the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park. A gorgeous day with the river high from torrential hurricane remnant thunder storms the valley experienced a couple of days a go. It has been a few weeks since I was last in this section of the park. Everything is green and growing and pressing upon the life around it. This was another productive excursion to the river and I made several site specific works with the plastic I found. I’ve decided to break those posts up into several stories because many of the pictures came out well.

For this piece, I selected an area that I knew would have lots of plastic washed ashore. With the river currently high, the searchable area is constricted by the encroaching water and high-walled riverbank and by dense vegetation. When I unloaded my collecting bags and the contents of a milk crate I pressed into service…this is what I picked up. Interestingly, this collection also includes plastic palettes from rival cola companies. The rest of the best includes plastic containers for petroleum and laundry products. As you can see, most of the labels have come off of the bottles due to river immersion. I picked a place with lots of growing grape vines and set up my latest bottle piece. Here is a quick sequence showing the progress…starting with building a three-tiered structure using local wood and logs I found in place.

There are always surprises in what colors are available in a given area. In this section of the park, black, green, and purple colored plastic was harder to come by. I used five boards, three small logs, and a large log (hidden in the grape vines) to build this three layer structure to hold my found bottles. I worked on this piece and another one I will show later moving back and forth between the hot sunlight of this assemblage and the piece I was making in the cooling shade. Here are a couple more bottle details which I like to show off the color.

Everything about these containers is so highly artificial that they contrast with all the greenery around it. So much thought and effort went into the design of these bottles to make their intended contents as desirable as possible. That part worked because these plastic bottles were consumed in large numbers and many of them found their way carelessly into the Ohio River.

The reality that this was made from discards is balanced by the good cheer I feel from the rainbow-inspired colors arranged on the weathered wood. If I had not put them into this form, they would be nearly invisible plastic units scattered over the land. These bottles are ubiquitous in our lives and even without the labels…we recognize what many of the products were.

This is where I left the latest of the Petroleum Rainbow series…pressed by verdant grapevines and an ever encroaching river. Since I made this piece last week…our area has been buffeted by torrential rains and high winds. It wouldn’t surprise me to see that water now laps at this assemblage’s “feet”. It has been a remarkable week in other ways with the upholding of the Affordable Heath Care Act and making marriage a right for all throughout the land. I hope that these great quality of life decisions we make will keep the state of the environment a high priority too. One last picture before leaving…also taken in the western section of the park….so long 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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Plastic Color Concentrate

Posted in Art, Artist at Exit 0, Clarksville, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, Installation, Louisville, old refrigerator, photography, plastic, public art, repurposed materials, Styrofoam, tagged Absurd, art and nature, art and the environment, art exhibition, art process, art studio, artist at exit 0, Beach combing, blue, collecting, creative process, driftwood, flip flops, plastic bottles, plastic containers, yellow on May 4, 2015| 4 Comments »

April’s tale was of a high Ohio River and rain fall for the record books. Twice the river rose to flood stage before subsiding back into its muddy banks. Left in its now drying wake are trash mounds and islands of wood and debris that were pushed and floated upon the water’s surface by wind and current. In this mish mash of culture and nature I carefully pick my way over and through the debris fields at the Falls of the Ohio. All along the riverbank, the dull and muddy colored wood contrasts with the reflected light from hundreds of plastic bottles and chunks of bright white Styrofoam.

I picked a great day to visit the river. As soon as I arrived in the park, I could hear several newly arrived male Northern Orioles calling back and forth through the tall cottonwood trees. I even found several eggs. Here is a large blue plastic egg nestled in shredded tree bark and plastic bottles. I also found a muddy, but real Canada goose egg now too cool to incubate. There was an adult goose hanging out near me and I suspect some early nesters had their clutch washed away by the second flood. I decided with so much brightly colored plastic scattered all over this woody mound…I wondered if I could put any of it to use?

As you can see in this detail image…I decided to concentrate on the color yellow. I stayed within a certain area and collected all the yellow objects on this driftwood mound. It was tricky work because the footing was not good. Several times I sank to my hip as my leg would go through the loosely tangled branches, dirt, and logs.

I call this piece “Yellow Concentrate”. It consists of mostly plastic, quart-sized oil containers along with a few larger laundry detergent jugs. There are a few odd items as well. I found three rubber ducks on today’s adventure and used two of them here. I used a bowl-like depression in the driftwood as my setting to assemble and sort through the junk. I was glad to have the wooden platform in the foreground because it was also easy on the feet.

This site gave me potential for a few good views. Here is “Yellow Concentrate” with the railroad bridge in the background.

Now here’s the same piece with the skyline of the City of Louisville on the southern shore. All that massed yellow really pops you in the eye. Individually, all these yellow plastic containers barely registered scattered across the debris field, but it’s a different story when you bring them together. Feeling pretty good about yellow…I decided to next try a different color.

As I was collecting all the yellow containers…I was also sorting out the blue ones and throwing them in the driftwood bowl. On a nearby fallen, diagonally leaning tree trunk…I arranged my collection. The big blue Easter egg is near the center. As I worked on “Blue Extract”, the hole I was standing in kept getting wider and deeper.

Most of these containers are plastic oil and liquid detergent bottles, but I mixed a few aerosol cans in as well. In this line are seven plastic and rubber balls. One last project before calling it a day. I stayed in the same area and pulled aside all the lost flip-flops I encountered. I laid them all out on the white surface of a metal refrigerator that had floated in here with the last flood. It looked like the Shoe Shaman had been this way too.

The stark whiteness of the fallen refrigerator reminded me of the white pedestals that you would find in an official gallery. I organized the lost foot wear from smallest to largest, left to right. I soon left for home with a hefty collecting bag full of “river treasure” and a camera loaded with images. Every thing else was left in place. I will come back when the river level drops a little bit more and the fudge-like mud has had the chance to harden in the sun. There is still so much more to explore in the park and can see myself keeping busy for the rest of the year. Here’s one last look over the shoulder at today’s location at the Falls of the Ohio. I realized after the fact, that the found milk crate I used to move materials around was so bright red that it holds its place among the yellow and blue. Until next time!

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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Posts Tagged ‘plastic containers’

The Crying Indian

Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

More Fun with Plastic Jugs

Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

Plastic Color Concentrate

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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Posts Tagged ‘plastic containers’

The Crying Indian

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Plastic Rainbow Arrangement with Fred Flintstone too!

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More Fun with Plastic Jugs

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Big Jug Rainbow and Stump Flower

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Plastic Color Concentrate

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