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Posts Tagged ‘plastic’

On Plastic River

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, material culture, Photograpy, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art in nature, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, nature, photography, plastic, plastic recycling, process art, public art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific art, the golden hour, the plastic issue on February 23, 2016| 7 Comments »

Last Saturday was a nearly 70 degree day and the sun was shining. I couldn’t wait to get to the Falls of the Ohio to do a little exploring and maybe make something. I was totally surprised to find that the Ohio River was up again despite our area not receiving much in the way of rain during the week. The warmer temperatures must be melting what snow is still on the ground in the upstream sections of the Ohio River Valley? That’s my theory and for the moment I will stick with that. As with the previous weekend, the areas in the park that I more routinely work in were all underwater. So, like the previous weekend I hiked out to the western section of the park where the riverbank is higher. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find much out here since I picked up a lot of waste plastic to make my last rainbow arrangement. Boy was I wrong. Waiting for me along the waterline was a “fresh” selection of polyvinyl chloride for the picking. Perhaps because for the moment I have been fixated artistically with this material, but to my eye it seems our “plastic problem” is getting worse.

In quick order I was able to stuff the two collecting bags I brought with me to capacity as well as fill a found plastic toboggan with even more plastic. That was just the start.

I could have kept going and going, but soon realized that I was also running out of light. I chided myself under my breath for getting a late start on this day. I had other home duties that needed my attention. If I was going to do anything with this latest batch of plastic finds it had better be soon. I had also intended to check out the project I had made the previous week, but it was further down the riverbank. Once I got going on this assemblage, I forgot all about that earlier piece. It was now a race against the quickly setting sun.

I dragged all the plastic junk I had collected to a place on the riverbank that I thought had pictorial possibilities. I then sorted this mess into various color groups. Using the two plastic milk crates I had found and a wooden plank I created a shelf-like surface that was fairly level where I could arrange my latest collection of finds.

Here’s a process photo of my piece about half way through along with my shadow. This plastic arrangement was situated in a space between the high riverbank and a large log that floated into position here last year. And now for some “finished” views.

I finished laying the last piece of plastic down just in time for the “Golden Hour” when for a brief moment the light has this incredible color. This time of day reminds me of some of Maxfield Parrish’s paintings who must have also been fond of this effect of light. Here are a few details of the junk I used for my arrangement.

In the green section you can see the Tug Boat that I found on my last trip. This time I picked it up and carried it with me and incorporated it into this piece. Other notable finds include a light orange, Winnie the Pooh, “Tigger” character head that was used for collecting candy on Halloween night. That’s a little different from the usual jack-o-lantern head. I also found a bright red plastic fish that is also a sand mold for child’s play. The majority, however, are bottles for detergents and various petroleum products.

Soon, the light begins to fade. In this shot you can get a better sense of why I selected this location. My arrangement is protected by these wonderful tree roots that add a bit of animation to the scene. What you can also see is that the tree to the left doesn’t have long to stand before the river and erosion will change this part of the riverbank and knock this tree down.

The sun was setting and I had a long walk ahead of me and after basking in a bit of color it was time to call it a day. On the walk back to my vehicle, I wondered what I was getting out of this activity? As an exercise in building an awareness of the plastic issue…well, by this point everybody who cares to know does. And the folks that would prefer this to be out of sight and out of mind, well, there is that too and you wonder what it would take to convince anyone of the urgency of this problem? I went through several rationales, but it wasn’t until I got home and downloaded my pictures to my computer that I decided there was something in the perverse beauty of man who stands in contrast to the rest of nature that I find compelling. I will muse on this for a while, but for now…so long from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Two Arrangements in Plastic

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, flip-flops, found materials, Found objects, Installation, lost and found, lost sandals, material culture, nature photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, watershed, tagged Art, art and the environment, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, colorful plastic containers, Ekoart, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, material culture, nature, photography, plastic, plastic art, recycled materials, repurposed art, sense of place on January 24, 2016| 6 Comments »

Over the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday weekend I was able to make it out to the Falls of the Ohio State Park on a couple of occasions. It helped that this was a three-day weekend. I was curious to see what was lying around the riverbank after our first dusting of snow had blown away. As I was expecting, I found a lot of plastic bottles and containers, Styrofoam, and plenty of driftwood. I first inspect an area for the larger pattern left by the river. The stuff that floats most readily often defines the high water mark on the riverbank.

This is a typical detail of stuff that builds up on a driftwood mound. There are many automotive and boating references particularly plastic bottles that held various petroleum products. There is also a wealth of plastic beverage bottles to illustrate the carelessness of some folks recreating on the river. I have a mental image of this stuff eventually flowing downriver, into the Mississippi River, and out into the wider world through the Gulf of Mexico. What I see at the Falls of the Ohio is only what I see. I know there is a glacier of plastic and junk that by passes me and will show up somewhere downstream. With each succeeding flood, I keep thinking that all the stuff that had been accumulating upriver has already been washed into the watershed. That, however, doesn’t seem to be the case and the amount of “fresh trash” that shows up in the park seems not to have a limit.

Both days that I worked at the river were very cold ones. The piece I made using found yellow and green plastic was the coldest with temps hovering around 10 degrees and it was colder than that with the wind. After picking up what caught my eye, I retreated to my little studio area near the U.F.O. (Unidentified Floating Object) that is this welded and painted steel platform that washed into this area over five years ago.

I saw a possibility in the space under the UFO that was formed when the river shifted the driftwood mound. I cleared the space a little bit and found a plank and stump in which to set up what I would eventually call “Arrangement in Yellow and Green Plastic”. All the bottles and other colorful plastic items were picked up in the immediate area. The wind was really biting and so I sought shelter by the treeline. It took a little patience to make this piece because the wind kept blowing away the lighter items. Eventually, I fit everything together and held it in place by strategically using found bottles that still had weight to them because mud or sand had become their new contents.

My photos of this piece vary from one another because elements kept blowing off. I was struck that I could make a colorful gradation using primarily yellow and green plastic found just in the willow habitat. I favor doing these color pieces because they also reference the electromagnetic spectrum and without light, those ancient plants that lived and succeeded millions of years ago would not eventually become the crude substance from which these bottles were fabricated. It’s interesting to me to think that much of the energy we derive from fossil fuels is captured starlight from an ancient time. We owe it to the plants to be able to stabilize this energy through photosynthesis and fix it into their very tissues.

Eventually, the cold started to get to me and I was fast losing what little light was present on this day. I might have moved the blue plastic drum out of the bottom picture, but it was frozen into the ground and full of sand and mud and would have been a challenge to lift. After awhile, I began to like it for the additional color it lent this scene. One thing concentrating so much color in one area does is call into attention the brown drabness that subsumes everything else.

I returned to the river two days later. It was still very cold, however, a big improvement over the previous day. The sun was shining and the wind was absent. Having completed and photographed one colorful plastic arrangement, I set about creating a new one in a different palette of colors. Searching the area I decided to work at…I could see plenty of red and blue plastic items spread out among the driftwood. It took me an hour or so to pull these bottles and objects together. I wished that I might have come across a few more violet or purple items, but I guess these are colors that are used less than straight up red or blue? I know that in terms of lightfastness, red and purple plastic fades away quicker than many other colors.

Using a bit of the geometry I was feeling from the willow trees and the way the sunlight was hitting their trunks…I decided to site “Arrangement in Red and Blue Plastic” on the sand. There’s a distant view of the Ohio River through this informal avenue of trees. Watching how the shadows of the tree trunks were being cast upon the sand was an important element in the overall composition of this piece.

Among the items comprising this work are a blue plastic child’s putter golf club, the cap to a plastic cane that held Christmas candy and several flip-flops of the right color. When I finished this piece, I left it in place as I did the other arrangement. Perhaps the next time I return to this area, I may combine the two groups of plastic? I could create another grand rainbow with the addition of finding more orange in particular. I probably would throw in some black and white plastic items since they are here in quantity as well. I felt relatively good about this weekend’s projects and some of the images that resulted. When I am occupied with a project, I really don’t feel the elements in the same way. I suppose there is a bit of mind over matter happening too. When I do feel the cold, however, is when I decide to turn for home and come across a frozen sight like these containers locked in ice! Stay warm and safe everybody…from the Falls of the Ohio.

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New Exhibits at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center

Posted in Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, Installation, lost and found, material culture, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, photography, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Styrofoam, unusual collection, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit o, assemblage art, Devonian Period, driftwood, exhibit design, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, Falls of the Ohio State Park, flint artifacts, fossil beds, found objects, Lewis and Clark, nature display, photography, plastic, pollution, sense of place, Shawnee language, Solid Light on January 10, 2016| 6 Comments »

On January 8 of this new year, the exhibits at the renovated Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center opened to the public with a grand ribbon cutting ceremony. The interior of the Interpretive Center had been closed for 13 months. About 6 million dollars had to be raised to upgrade the 22-year-old permanent educational displays. After a national search, Louisville-based exhibit design company, Solid Light, Inc. won this high-profile contract and solidified their growing reputation within the exhibit design field. Judging from the enthusiastic response of the people attending the reopening it was worth the wait. I played a very small part with a commission to create an assemblage from objects I found in the park and I was eager to see how Solid Light used it.

The displays are divided into four themes or sections beginning with “An Ancient Sea” that highlights early marine life during the Devonian Period. The extensive fossil beds in the park date roughly to 400 million years ago and are the remains of an early coral reef ecosystem populated with many species of coral, brachiopods, and early fish which make their first appearance during the Devonian Period. I was glad to see some of the older models that made up the original display were re-purposed into the new display. The exhibit is interactive and there are hands on elements that children will enjoy. Large, wall-sized videos help set the scene through many of the sections and in “An Ancient Sea” an animation depicting a shallow marine environment includes fish swimming through sun-dappled waters as trilobites search for food among the corals.

The second theme is entitled “A Changing Land” and covers all the geologic changes from the Ice Age to the appearance of the first Americans. For me, the highlight of this area is the inclusion of the Shawnee language which can be heard spoken inside a reconstructed shelter. It’s wonderful that the contemporary descendants of these ancient people were involved in the design of this display and acknowledges their presence at the Falls of the Ohio.

Previously, the remains of prehistoric man’s material culture (primarily represented through flint tools) were a focal point in the old center’s displays. For those worried that examples of the “real thing” would be replaced with virtual images and copies will be pleased that you can still explore original material through some inspired casework. Be sure to peek inside many of the drawers in the different themed areas to see fine examples of specimens and artifacts.

The third theme “Converging Cultures” recounts the history of the Falls area with the arrival of the Europeans. The Lewis and Clark Expedition is a key moment not only in the history of the United States, but of the Falls of the Ohio as well. Many of the men that comprised the “Corps of Discovery” were originally from Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Wall-sized videos in the Lewis and Clark Theater recount the biographies of many of the men who made this epic transcontinental journey. The story of John James Audubon is also noted and forms a transition into the last themed area of the new displays.

This last section is called “The Falls Today” and focuses upon the Falls of the Ohio as a rich contemporary ecosystem. Some of the old taxidermy mounts have been reused to highlight some of the many species that live within the park. Another large video display, this time a virtual aquarium, speaks to the richness of life in the river, particularly the species of game fish that are of interest to fisherman. There is also a call to responsible and sustainable living and the need to keep pollution at bay. This is where I come in. I was commissioned by Solid Light to create an assemblage of found objects that is representative of what can be found in the Ohio River. Here is the finished result that was placed within its own case with graphic elements added.

The panel within the case is 8 feet by 4 feet large. I posted about the panel as I was creating it and showed many details of the more than 100 different objects that comprise it. Of course, everything I’ve attached here was found within the context of the park. The early reaction is that children in particular love looking at all the odd elements especially the found toys. My panel is among the last things you see as you leave the exhibits area to exit the building. I’m glad that there has been a greater emphasis in this new interpretation to include the current state of the world. One could argue that as interesting as the past is…it is the present that is of the greatest concern. Further reinforcing this idea are the results of the minor flooding we experienced the previous week. As the river has subsided, another massive new inventory of junk has washed into the park. As I was leaving the ribbon cutting ceremony and walking to my vehicle, I could clearly see how much more work needs to be done. Until next time…from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Thanksgiving Encounter at the Falls of the Ohio

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, lost and found, material culture, nature photography, Photograpy, recycled art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged absurdity, Art, artist at exit 0, climate change, ecostory, environmental story, Falls of the Ohio State Park, found materials, Hulk hand, man and nature, material culture, osage orange fruit, plastic, sense of place, Styrofoam, Winter's arrival on December 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a tale from my last visit to the river which happened to be a wondrous and warm Thanksgiving morning at the Falls of the Ohio. Before the family gatherings and the feasts that followed, I jumped out of bed to put in a few hours of personal time. As I recall, on this day last year it was 17 degrees and we had already experienced a snow fall. Despite Turkey Day’s balmy 70 degrees, I didn’t see many other folks out here with the exception of a few early rising fisherman who were casting for Sauger near the dam. Nobody seemed to be having much luck catching fish. I decided that I needed to start off my holiday season by doing a little holiday shopping Falls style. Meaning, no money is required…just come out here and sooner or later you will find something interesting that drifted in with the driftwood. After all, everything out here has a story connected to it. It’s finder’s keepers on the riverbank and you can cross off your gift list those particularly “hard to shop for” loved ones in practically no time at all! First, you need a shopping cart and after searching around I found this…see above picture. Despite its small size…I decided to pass on this find because the missing wheels would just get in the way. I decided that one of my many collecting bags would have to suffice. So, what kinds of things stood out on this day?

I came across many fruits from the Osage-orange tree (Maclura pomifera). I love their glowing color and weird surfaces that remind me of brains. A squirrel was eating one when I approached. I have heard of people who put these fruits in their closets and trunks to keep insect pests away from their out of season clothes. People do collect and sell these soft ball size fruits for this purpose. Osage-orange trees have quite a few other nicknames including: hedge apple, monkey ball, horse apple, mock orange, and yellow-wood. Potentially this orb could be a stocking stuffer for an organically inclined friend or two? Our next item was found waiting for me on the wet and slimy fossil beds. The rocks were so slick, I had trouble remaining upright as I approached the mystery object.

Here’s something else sporting an unusual shade of green. As gentle river waves lapped the exposed limestone fossil beds…something that looked like a large fist presented itself lying next to driftwood logs. As I suspected when I first spotted this item…it was a toy “Hulk” hand. Essentially, this is an over-sized, comic book character, soft boxing glove that a child could insert their own hand within when their inner Bruce Bannon gets overwhelmed by their raging Hulk persona! Smashing could then ensue. I considered dropping this into the collecting bag, but it was so heavily saturated with river water. Still, definitely a pop culture item that would be appreciated once the darned thing dried out. I’ll come back to this later, unless someone who wants it more takes it home first!

After I did my rounds around the Willow Habitat, I headed for my outdoor studio under the trees. I had stashed two large chunks of found Styrofoam at my site that had floated into the park earlier in the spring with this year’s flooding. I had to wait months for the largest piece to thoroughly dry out before I could even attempt to lift it. These larger chunks may originally have been parts of boat docks which do absorb water while retaining buoyancy. As I was imagining what I could make with this material, a stranger approached me. I was so rapt upon my polystyrene pair that I had let my usual guard down.

“Excuse me…I don’t mean to disturb or startle you, but do you mind if I ask you a question?” I’m sure I must have had that slack-jawed look of amazement on my face! The absurd looking persona in front of me was much taller than myself. I estimated he was at least 6 feet 5 inches or even slightly taller than that. Dressed all in white, he had a large nose and two eyes that were different colors on an otherwise huge head. Over one of his shoulders he was carrying a snow shovel that was missing half its snow blade. I did my best to gather my wits and replied in a slightly cracked voice…”Sure, what’s your question?” It’s not that unusual for people (especially children) who see me out here to wonder about what I’m doing?

“Can you hear that?” asked the giant. I’m sure I looked puzzled and so he repeated the question. I then stood still and listened and replied that all I heard were the local birds moving through the trees. I had noticed earlier that the chickadees, kinglets, and woodpeckers and other seasonable birds had been especially active on this beautiful day. My large “friend”, however, said that it wasn’t the birds he was hearing but rather something more abstract than that. My response was to ask him what he was hearing that seemed beyond the threshold of my own hearing (which is no mean feat these days)? The big guy gave a one word response to me and it was…”Winter”.

The big guy had this wistful look upon his strange visage and he said, “Winter is coming my friend and that is what I hear.” He then continued, “This year is nearly history now and all it’s good, bad, and indifferent moments will be covered up by a cold, white blanket of forgetfulness.” I’m sure he was right about that, but it did seem odd considering it was 70 degrees outside today!

I asked my new acquaintance if he thought this was going to be a particularly tough winter since he seemed to be presenting himself as something of an authority on the subject?

He replied, “That’s difficult to say considering all the weather patterns and all the factors that generate the weather are in a state of flux.” He continued, “It’s been many, many years since I’ve seen the planet be this confused. I have been wandering the land gathering clues and I’m afraid, that I can’t give you an accurate forecast. The only thing I’m sure of is that at some point winter will arrive and I will be out here to meet it.”

My own thoughts turned to an episode of Falls of the Ohio history. This whole river valley was originally sculpted by one of the last glaciers at the close of the last Ice Age. You can even find deposits of gravel here that date from that period thousands of years a go.

I had to ask this Styro-Snow Shovel Man if he believed the changes in the weather had something to do with our species’ activities? “Well”, he said…”there are a lot of you on the planet now and as a group, you don’t seem very concerned about what’s happening in the big scheme of things.” I reluctantly had to agree with him. I have my own anecdotal information gleaned from this park to back up my own thoughts on the subject. At the time of this writing, many of the world’s leaders are meeting in Paris to try to decide if any changes could be made that might help reduce the impact of our overall activities. I remain open and hope a positive consensus can be reached. Like the approach of winter…we shall see. With Thanksgiving waiting for me…I said my good byes and left my new friend standing in the park. Perhaps I will see him again…after the first snowflake falls?

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Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, Art and Nature, art and the environment, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, collections, creativity, driftwood, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, lost and found, material culture, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, Site specific art, Styrofoam, tagged aluminum, Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, broken flamingo, coal, coyote skull, driftwood, exhibit display, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel, Falls of the Ohio State Park, found objects, glass, lost and found, material culture, plastic, sense of place, Solid Light Inc. on October 18, 2015| 6 Comments »

Although I could have gone on making this panel richer and richer, at a certain point, you need to call this piece finished. Solid Light, Inc., the Louisville-based exhibit design team responsible for the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center’s renovation wanted to have everything in place by October. Officially, the center won’t open to the public until January 2016, however, the center wants to do a series of trial runs to see how well the new exhibits will work with school groups under the center’s educational staff. I worked pretty feverishly at my friend Tom’s large studio to get this panel realized before needing to turn it over to the designers. Also compelling me was the need to undertake a personal trip to Florida with my family to visit my ailing mother. Mom is getting better, but it’s just not life anymore if there aren’t many balls being juggled in the air simultaneously! I had more than enough found objects and river materials to get the job done. If anything, I may have had too many things to choose from! For this post, I thought I would share images of the panel in progress as well as some detail shots of its surface. The fun of this piece is looking up close to see the variety of objects both natural and artificial that have been fixed into place.

I tried several arrangements before settling on something that I thought would work. Central in all my compositions was the use of an old marine cable and the fragment from the side of a discarded set of wooden steps. The design team wanted a look that seemed to suggest that the objects and materials I was going to use had just washed up upon this place. Having something that appeared casual and spontaneous, but also composed was a big challenge. My own formalist tendencies wanted to work within a tighter composition, but I relaxed that by doing several dry run layouts before I nailed or glued anything in place. Of course, there is fantasy operating in the finished panel too because no where at the Falls of the Ohio have I ever encountered this much concentrated stuff in such a small area.

Another step that I realized was prudent before attaching stuff was painting my wood panel. I went for a mottled brown and gray background that resembled mulch and dried leaves. I think I did a good job of covering the surface and only in places can you see through to the wood panel below.

I was really proud of myself! I only dipped my painting brush into my coffee once! Once the surface was dry, I began by attaching the nylon cable around the panel first. I used a borrowed nail gun hooked up to an air compressor to do this. In fact, where possible, I used the nail gun as much as I could. I also used screws and a variety of adhesives (depending upon the material being glued) to attach items to the board. Working with polystyrene and various plastics can be tricky because certain compounds will eat and dissolve these materials.

I worried that my barge cable might make the panel look too much like the decor you see in seafood restaurants, but I think I managed to barely escape that impression. After the cable, I attached the wooden steps and glued the larger pieces of Styrofoam into place. I had other limitations that I haven’t mentioned yet, but this is as good a place as any to say what those were. First, nothing could project off of the surface any higher than 3.5 to 3.75 inches! The panel would need to be able to slide into a case that is 4 inches deep. Another concern was keeping a clean 3/4″ open wood margin along the entire outer edge of the panel. This would assist in sliding the panel into its case. Apparently, after the above shot, I didn’t take any more in process photos because I was too busy making the thing! Here’s a pretty close to finished view of the panel. I worked on this panel horizontally, but did tip it up to see it as others will see it and to find out if anything would fall off the surface? Fortunately, everything pretty much stayed in place.

There is a whole list of things you can find on this panel. On the base level, it is a good mix of the driftwood, polystyrene, glass, coal, aluminum, and other plastics found in the Ohio River. Here are a few details to give you a better look.

Some of the items on the panel like the coyote skull …I’ve had for many years while other pieces like the plastic Native American came to light a month a go. I had to include at least one doll in this assemblage because outside of toy balls…dolls are the most frequently found toy I come across at the Falls of the Ohio. I sprinkled in enough polished coal, walnuts, and mussel shells to keep it lively. I’m looking forward to seeing all the finished displays sometime soon. I’m sure this panel will look completely different in its case and in the context of the other exhibits. Looking forward to getting back outside to the river sometime soon. I still have a trip to Richmond, KY on the schedule to pick up my art that I have on display there . For now, I will content myself with this picture taken in the park several weeks a go. Thanks for dropping by!

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Park West Petrochemical Rainbow

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, creativity, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, material culture, Ohio River, photography, plastic, Plastic art, public art, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sculpture, sense of place, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, colorful plastic, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, found objects, nature, photography, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, sense of place, site specific art on August 16, 2015| 2 Comments »

Hot, sticky, and the humidity had me sweating the moment I entered the park. Today’s outing seemed more like an extreme sport than an attempt at art making. I decided to focus my efforts in the western section of the Falls of the Ohio State Park. I knew the recent flooding we had experienced would more than likely deposit a lot of junk and debris along the driftwood cluttered shoreline. I was right about that, but first I had to “earn it”. To access the shoreline in this area of the park required going over, under, and around large trees that had either blown over by high winds or were undermined by the soil being washed away from the riverbank.

One thing I noticed being in this section of the park…was that all the purple loosestrife seemed to be gone. Normally, one can expect to find a whole host of butterfly and other insect species sipping nectar from the colorful flowers. On this expedition, I did not see one bloom from this admittedly invasive species. I think the Ohio River’s recent bouts of high water must have affected them? I find this somewhat unusual since I associate them with growing in very damp areas. Perhaps in their case, too much of a good thing is actually a bad thing? I will do some research to see if my hunch is true. Regardless of no purple loosestrife, there were plenty of vines to snag and trip over making the footing tricky…as if the soft mud and irregular surfaces of the driftwood weren’t enough of a challenge!

With the hot sun beating on me, I faithfully search the riverbank and collected the colorful discarded items that were first “gifted” to the river and then to me. Walking from one promising area to another…I found enough plastic junk to make my next site specific piece. Here’s another look at some of the objects that I found on this day.

The really bright and colorful plastic objects virtually scream at you when you bother to pay attention. Otherwise, it’s all just part of the material crap we create and dispose of indiscriminately. Maybe because I’m looking for this kind of thing…I see it more easily. I’ve trained my eye to spot the unnatural colors mixed among the gray and brown tones of the driftwood. I decided to set up a display in a particularly promising area between two debris fields that was also close to the river. I looked around and gathered some old milled boards and set them up on short, cut logs and before long had a table-like altar to lay my plastic treasures upon. Following are several looks at the completed work.

Here’s a view from behind the piece. You can see other bottles and junk mixed into the driftwood in the foreground. I set this piece up on an area of cracked and drying river mud.

Now a view from the front. I placed this work here to take advantage of the sunlight which was beginning to set in the late afternoon. I also wanted the verdant darkness behind all the colors to help create greater contrast. There are three tiers of boards that I used for this display. As is usual, I found less of some colors and more of others. In this instance, I could have used a few more orange plastic objects, but just one small plastic bottle was all I found this time.

In the late afternoon, all the various colors in this plastic are energized by the sun’s electromagnetic spectrum which causes this junk to glow. It’s the “golden hour” and one of my favorite times of day for its ability to infuse and unify the everyday with magic. I have stayed out on the river far longer than I first anticipated. The gnats and mosquitoes have had their way with me. Plus all my granola bars for energy have been consumed and my water ran out a couple of hours a go.

I’m fading fast and still have a long hike to make. All the obstacles that were there on the way in will also be there on the way out of the park. I took one last look back at my most recent project and decide that it is the best I can do at this particular moment. I’m calling this one, the “Park West Petrochemical Rainbow” so I can remember what section of the park I visited when I assembled this piece. I picked up my collecting bag and walking stick and made sure I wasn’t leaving something I might need behind me. The rest is one foot in front of the other. I let the fading beauty of the light distract me from my discomforts. Food, water, and a nice shower are waiting for me at the end of the line. See you later from the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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Eventually, the River Goes Back Down

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, Art and Nature, Artist at Exit 0, assemblage art, driftwood, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, Found objects, fresh water, lost and found, Louisville, Kentucky, material culture, nature photography, Ohio River, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, recycled art, repurposed art, repurposed materials, sense of place, watershed, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, assemblage art, coconut, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, material culture, nature, photography, plastic, plastic bottles, repurposed art, sense of place on August 9, 2015| 5 Comments »

Eventually, the water does go back down and reveals after the fact, all the newest changes that the river has made in the park. You saw part of that in my last post with the way one favorite willow tree has been shaped by this latest event. In many places in the park, you can find logs that floated here from some potentially far away places.

Just a few weeks earlier, I posted images of Asian carp jumping over this very same spot. The walls of the dam were no obstacle then. Now the dam has been “graced” with many logs that were stranded along the top. They will stay here until the next flooding event or until something else shifts the balance.

Because this is summer and we have experienced so much rain, all the vegetation is really lush. Familiar paths are overgrown and the heat and humidity seem trapped at ground level. I am completely sweaty in no time at all. I went and checked out the green bottle piece I had made many weeks a go and it is still relatively in place. I assembled it on top of a large driftwood mound that this latest bout of high water was unable to fully reach. I can tell that the mound has shifted some and all of the bottles have settled within the upturned boat dock. Now, the entire mound is covered in vines. This makes it especially tricky to walk over. I snapped a few pictures and moved to the safety of the riverbank. There are lots of areas to explore and who knows what we shall find?

Slogging through the mud and wetness along the river’s edge, I make this amazing discovery. It’s a River coconut! I wonder what the tree that produced this hairy fruit looks like? Since much of the water that reaches us here flows from the north downward, I imagine that this is one hardy tree. I guess the coconut’s shagginess is a coping mechanism for cold winters? As we walk, there are more discoveries to be made.

Further down the riverbank I encounter this object. I am holding it as I am because initially, I thought this was an extra-large toy wristwatch minus the hands and numbers. Since I have been able to examine it more closely from the leisure of my home…I am now thinking that this is a child’s pro wrestling inspired championship belt? All the glued on rhinestones must have fallen off while the river carried it away from wherever it originated from.

Walking further west…I discover the remains of a riding toy. This is a blue plastic dolphin that came to rest in the Willow Habitat. There are more plastic items to find. Next was perhaps my favorite find of the day.

This is so small, that I’m surprised I spotted it among all the other small items both natural and artificial. It’s of course a plastic doll shoe, but this one has a nice patina acquired from being in the river for a while. I still find many dolls and doll parts, but this little doll accessory is a rare find. Unfortunately, there is also plenty of other plastic in the park that isn’t so hard to find. Here’s one such example as I found it in place.

Three plastic bottles and containers rest in a pretty disgusting looking puddle. The orange color is actually something I find occurring here naturally and may be due to some red oxide that exists below the many levels of clay and sand. Of late, I have been collecting various plastic bottles and creating other site specific pieces with them. On this particular day, I made a relatively small one due to time constraints. I have often found that it is good to have some limits with this river art. Simply, there are so many things one can work with and I have added to my vocabulary of forms and materials slowly over the years.

Like some of my previous efforts, I chose a particularly promising area that seemed to have a “wealth” of plastic bottles and containers. I then set out to find colorful examples to make an assemblage with. I like contrasting the high artificiality of these bright objects with the more subdued organic efforts of Mother Nature. The high-keyed colors are often cheery. I think that even on a subconscious level, we recognize the former products that were in these bottles even without their original labels which have washed away. From our own household experiences and uses, we are reassured by the soap that will clean our clothes or the oil that keeps our engines humming and in good condition. That’s where the tension lies in these simple assemblages…we know that this is far from the case. Since we now know that these containers and the products they once held were extracted from nature at great cost. In the aftermath of use…that cost continues as the packaging is disposed of irresponsibly. This particular artwork is heavy on the black which influences things as well. I simply found more black containers on this day and used them. After a few photographs, I picked up my collecting bags and headed home exhausted from slogging through the mud, heat, and humidity. I’ll leave this post with one more view from the Indiana side of the Ohio River. On the way home, I noticed a small flock of Canada Geese gliding past the skyline of Louisville and the river seemed at peace for the moment. Catch you later from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Petrochemical Playground…Falls Style

Posted in Art, assemblage art, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, found materials, nature, photography, plastic, repurposed art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged Art, art and nature, art and the environment, art process, artist at exit 0, Beach combing, cottonwood tree, Falls of the Ohio, petrochemicals, plastic on May 17, 2015| 2 Comments »

We have had a stretch of gorgeous days along the Ohio River! Lately, it has been more fun to be outdoors than indoors and consequently, documenting and posting about those adventures has taken a back seat to exploring. With rain in today’s forecast, it seems a good day to play catch up. Allow me, “Insert Name Here”, to be your host on what was a very productive day spent along the western shoreline at the Falls of the Ohio State Park a couple weekends a go. This was the first time I had ventured on this side of the park since our seasonal bout of flooding. In the past, this has also been a good place to find driftwood and plastic bottles. For today, I decided to walk along the riverbank utilizing the materials I came across and see how far that would carry me. Here’s today’s results in order of completion.

This year, I have a new series that I have enjoyed exploring in this driftwood and petrochemical playground. In part, it is a response due to the abundance of plastic bottle’s in this year’s flotsam and jetsam. It’s a challenge to try to use these materials in ways that will cause others to notice them afresh. We have become accustomed to having so much plastic around us and despite the often brilliant color of these objects, are relegated to the background like so many other things we have used or don’t care to acknowledge or know what to do about because so many other things are competing for our attention. To try to regain some element of focus, I have been clustering and combining mostly plastic containers in site specific areas along the trail. It’s an all organic study. Some of them present as shrines and are a reminder that we are all pilgrims on the river’s journey.

This piece which I’m calling “Arrangement in Blue Plastic” was assembled not too far away from the previous work. All the blue plastic elements were found in the surrounding area and deposited by high water. Among the found blue oddities includes a plastic boom-a-rang, the spade from a broken plastic shovel, and a beat up, formerly plush, blue plastic puppy. The arrangement is backed up by found, joined lumber.

This is a detail of the head from “Bemoaning Figure”. He’s a large Styrofoam sculpture about 6 feet tall. The area where I left him was very muddy…which in this case also aided in standing him up.

The polystyrene floated into the park along with the plastic bottles. I try to respect the shapes the river gives me with this foam. I thought the head was a particularly nice form. I was additionally lucky because both the head and body were found near one another and I didn’t need to carry so much stuff back and forth.

I left “Bemoaning Man” mired in the mud which was more than five inches or so of thick sticky fudge. I stepped right out of one of my shoes setting this figure up in the landscape! I had to find and pull my shoe out of the mud while balancing on one leg.

On the way from my trip…I stopped and reused a shelf I had set up earlier. I have become so much better at strategizing and planning as I go along. This is resulting in more pieces being photographed at the river.

As I walked along, I was picking up lost flip-flops and putting them into my collecting bag. At the end of day, I try to make an image with whatever I happened to find. So far, I’m calling this piece “Family Circle”. I left the wayward footwear right in this spot and moved on. All that’s left to look at before calling it a productive day are a couple of pictures of me (for scale) taken earlier in the morning.

Here I am posed next to one of my favorite trees in the park. It’s a large cottonwood tree that has been featured on this blog many times before. I have taken refuge underneath its roots during thunder storms and people like to camp out around it. It is one of the best features in the western section of the park. The day has been a long, but productive one with several river art projects realized. Thanks for tagging along…here’s one last look back at the full height of that cottonwood tree.

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A Different Kind of March Madness

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, art and the environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Louisville, Kentucky, Photograpy, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged 3 Stooges Ball, Art, art and the environment, artist at exit o, assemblage, driftwood, ecological art, Falls of the Ohio, found objects, March Madness, nature, Ohio River flooding, photography, plastic, sense of place, Styrofoam on April 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

A view from last weekend when the water level was dropping and the sun was shining and welcoming. Curiosity overwhelmed me and I ventured forth over the driftwood piles and muddy riverbanks. Looks like most of the driftwood at the Interpretive Center has been washed away, however, under the railroad bridge, a sizeable mound of twisted matter has accumulated. To avoid sinking ankle-deep in mud…I gingerly walk on the backs of huge logs and pick my way through the debris field.

This most recent bit of flooding has deposited a large number of plastic drinking bottles onto this landscape. I am assuming that the river isn’t through rising for the moment because two days ago…we received about six inches of new rain overnight. Statistically, that was the most rain ever recorded on an April day in Kentucky’s history and the fourth biggest rainfall total for a day during any month in our state’s experience. We had a lot of localized flooding from that storm and coupled with the immense fire at the General Electric Appliance Park, put the national spotlight on Louisville…twice in one day. The GE fire and subsequent thick, nasty smoke with its fumes and particulate matter from incinerated plastic rose into the clouds and was a nearly apocalyptic vision. Many people mistook the immense column of smoke for a tornado and the weather services were peppered with false alarms. All this goes into saying that environmentally, it’s been a rough few weeks around here. Spring while lovely with the returning sunshine and greenery, also has this dark side which it is not afraid to show from time to time.

I can be sure to find novelties among all this brown materiality. Can’t say I have ever come across a Three Stooges ball before and there they were, Larry, Curley, and Moe looking up at me! There were other treasures as well. Here’s a snapshot of a toy I found that I dropped into the old collecting bag.

Discovered resting upon the wood and bark chips was this plastic fragment from a vintage toy. It is missing it’s backside. I have found similar old toys before and now suspect the river has cut into a landfill and liberated these older toys from the ground.

Came across this large carp which was one of three dead animals I found. Also located the remains of a Black Vulture and a Canvasback Duck that looked to be what was left from a bird of prey’s meal. Every now and then, you discern a sickly sweet smell emanating from the driftwood and you know some other unfortunate life form is buried under the debris.

This is the centerpiece of my former outdoor studio area where I had cached many of the materials I found in the park. All the Styrofoam pieces I had salvaged for artworks have washed away, but there is a fresh batch for the picking. This large, painted, metal disc is what I’ve been calling the “UFO” which is short for Unknown Floating Object. It washed into the park several years a go and subsequent floods have yet to move it out. It is now tilted and has all this driftwood around it. Formerly, it was laying flat on the ground and made a nice surface to work on. My time is limited today and I want to make something from all this “abundance” out here. I select a few large chunks of Styrofoam and begin constructing a figure.

Large, Styrofoam head in progress, March 2015

Some of the large pieces of Styrofoam I want to work with are water-logged and too heavy to move. I will wait a few weeks and see if the sun dries them out more? I select two pieces for what will be a large, absurd figure and get to work. I pick up junk around my feet and created this large head. I move a really large polystyrene block into place atop the driftwood pile next to a river buoy that says “Idle Zone” on it. For the next couple of hours, I will be anything but idle.

While I was constructing this figure, I decided to call it “March Madness”. According to the Walls Street Journal and ESPN, the Louisville area is the epicenter of interest in the college basketball game and its season ending national championship tournament. Our region usually has several teams competing for top honors. On the day I made this figure, the University of Louisville Cardinals were knocked out of contention. I attached an old basketball to the end of a very long arm. The slight breeze blowing at the time caused the figure’s arms and head to sway and vibrate in place.

I look forward to spending a bit more time out here…weather permitting. If everything remains in place, there is a chance to make several large figures this season. I will be curious to see if this figure is still standing or whether park visitors or the elements have toppled it? I just received a notification from WordPress that I have just reached my sixth anniversary of blogging with them! For today, I will end with a picture of a tree that recently was completely underwater. You can tell how high the water rose from the junk caught among the branches. Happy Easter everybody!

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For the Dogs

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, collections, creativity, ecosytem, Falls of the Ohio, Photograpy, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, unusual collection, tagged Art, artist at exit 0, Canines, cartoon characters, cartoon dogs, Dogs, Falls of the Ohio, flotsam and jetsom, found materials, nature, photography, plastic, recycled art, sense of place, the environment, unusual collections, upscaled art on February 15, 2015| 10 Comments »

Many thanks to all who have wished me well in my new position at the Carnegie Center for Art and History. The people I work with are wonderful and the “old dog” that is me is enjoying learning new things. I noticed on the internet, Facebook in particular, how much people love posting about their pets. I’ve decided to take a page from the animal lovers of the world and try to post something both dog and Falls of the Ohio related and here goes! I start with a picture of our family’s dog. This is Cory and she will soon be eight years old. She is named after the town of Corydon, Indiana where she is from. Her mom was a pedigreed beagle and her father was…a one-eyed, black and white spotted Chihuahua/farm dog who took advantage of an opportunity that presented itself. Such is life! Regardless, the puppies were beautiful and Cory seems to have inherited the good qualities of both breeds. My youngest son, Adam, did the choosing and I recall she was the only female in the litter. In appearance, she looks like a miniature beagle and I love her coloring which is black and tan with little white feet. Cory has warm, brown eyes. She is smart, alert, playful, and devoted to our family to the point of being rather possessive. When I come home from work or the river, she is by far, the most excited to see me! Over the years her greeting me at the front door continues to be something I look forward to with deep fondness.

I decided one cold winter’s day to sort through some of the items I’ve found at the Falls of the Ohio over the years and classify them into more coherent collections. Out of my large and ever-growing toy collection, I determined that I had enough dog-related pieces to form a stand alone collection. I gathered the items up and here they are reassembled on the riverbank for this “class photo” of dog characters. This is just the stuff I decided to pick up and put into the collecting bag and does not count all the pet bowls, balls, and chew toys I’ve encountered. I might have picked up all these other items as well, but there is a certain threshold of plastic fatigue that is reached that is hard to move past. There is just so much needless stuff in the world and a lot of it seems to find its way into the Ohio River. The sheer over-abundance of our material culture has certainly shaped my personal direction as an artist.

While this is all just kitsch, some of this is fun and has endearing qualities that recall good moments from childhood. It’s amazing how much a tiny piece of crap plastic can have these other associations attached to it. I do recognize some of the characters portrayed, but not all. It’s actually become part of the challenge to try to identify what some of this stuff refers to? In this photo I recognize good old “Snoopy” from the “Peanuts” cartoon strip. There looks to be a pair of “Weeble” dogs and a couple of others (including a Dalmatian with a fire hat) that are from children’s play sets.

Here are two items from the “Clifford, the Big Red Dog” series. There is “Clifford” in the form of a juice bottle cap with a black patina from being in the river for a long period of time. I believe the other character is “T-bone”. Originally, when you pulled the bone on the string it would cause the dog’s body to vibrate.

I don’t recognize this guy? He’s kind of cute in a bug-eyed way. I’m sure there was a lot of time and effort that went into the myriad decisions to produce this item from beginning concept to finished product. That also includes extracting the petroleum from the earth and other ingredients that went into this exact plastic recipe.

This cutie seems old. I tried looking on a few toy sites, but could not identify this specific piece. I wonder if in fact it is made of rubber that has become rigid over time?

This earless, body-less, squashed, brown, plastic dog head was probably once part of a child’s pull-toy. That’s my best guess here.

This photo is from a few years back and shows a plastic “Huckleberry Hound” toy as I found it on Goose Island. I remember this character from my childhood and was shown along with “Quick Draw McGraw” cartoons. I later used the blue dog for a story I posted. Here’s an image from that story entitled “Lost and Found Hound”.

I wrote this story in 2010 and was inspired by the lost and stray dogs I sometimes encounter in the park. Sadly, plastic is not the only thing that gets disposed of out here. I did have one adventure at the Falls where I was menaced by a feral dog, but usually, they are very wary and difficult to approach. In my story, there is a happy ending and owner and dog are reunited. I guess it was kind of touching or at least as much as putting Styrofoam, plastic, and sticks together can be. I’ve never taken Cory to the Falls of the Ohio State Park. For one, dogs are supposed to be on a leash…not that everyone adheres to that. I guess I fear I would lose her if I let her run loose. Her nose would soon be overcome with “scent joy” and that would get the best of her. There are so many intriguing smells out here that make up a vast language that we have forgotten about that dogs still remember. Although she usually comes to me when I call her…out here, she could be gone in a blink of an eye and it’s not worth that. We will just stick to our neighborhood’s park. I have a couple other “dog” related projects I’ve made over the years.

Here’s an early project I created when I was less interested in stories and more interested in images and objects. You can’t tell from this picture, but I also made an “old woman” figure to accompany the dog. This piece is made from Styrofoam pinned together with little wooden pegs. It also incorporates plastic, driftwood, and nuts in its fabrication. The yellow ball is the core from a contemporary softball which gives you a hint for scale. I think the working title I had for this piece was “A Game of Fetch”. I enjoy the challenge of creating some sense of motion using such static materials.

Despite looking large in this image…this dog is actually very small. You can tell by the walnut I’ve added for scale. It’s “playing” in the shed, dried leaves of a willow tree. I think in this one, the eyes are bits of found coal. I used this same figure for an image that became one of my Christmas cards.

The dog is on the trail of a very large bird. In this case, the tracks were made by a Great Blue Heron and partially frozen in the sand. Well, there you have my tribute to dogs and the Falls of the Ohio. I dedicate this post to our beloved dog Cory. On a daily basis she teaches us that we are more fully human when we give our hearts to members of another species. See you next time from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

Art and images from the Falls of the Ohio.

Posts Tagged ‘plastic’

On Plastic River

Two Arrangements in Plastic

New Exhibits at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center

Thanksgiving Encounter at the Falls of the Ohio

Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center Panel

Park West Petrochemical Rainbow

Eventually, the River Goes Back Down

Petrochemical Playground…Falls Style

A Different Kind of March Madness

For the Dogs

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