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Posts Tagged ‘recycled art’

Mountaintop Minibar

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, collections, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature, Ohio River, public art, recycled art, sculpture, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2011| 4 Comments »

As promised, here are a few images from my completed bottle project.  For the last several months I have been finding empty liquor bottles and filling them with the coal that washed into the park after last spring’s flood.  A recent invitation to participate in a coal-themed art exhibition gave me a new reason to work with familiar materials.

It’s my assumption that the coal is in the Ohio River because it washed or fell off barges destined for power plants in the valley?  In places under the railroad bridge there were deposits several inches thick on the beach.  Not all of it was coal gravel, but included pebbles and larger pieces as well.  My “favorite” rocks were the ones that the river tumbled smooth into egg-shapes.  The white flecks in the black gravel are fragments of mussel shells.

In my mind I made a link between the empty booze bottles and the coal.  Both are products that require extraction to bring into being before being consumed in ever addictive quantities.  Putting the coal back into the bottles was a way to put random carbon back into storage and also feel some sense of doing something positive and purposeful by at least removing these materials from the Falls of the Ohio.  In Kentucky, we are consuming our mountains for their coal a sip here and shot there and the social and environmental challenges are adding up to a bigger headache in the wider world.

Since I started this piece here I also wanted a photo of it in the environment in which it was created one found and filled bottle at a time.  Between trips to the Falls I would store the bottles in my basement until I got enough of them to make something with.  When I finally decided I had more than enough I dragged it all back down to the river and set it up on a pretty autumn day.  I also recalled the badly twisted ankle I had over the summer that took weeks to heal.  I was doing this very activity when I rolled my ankle over in the sand.  I think the finished piece has about sixty bottles on it. Most of them are made of glass, but the smallest ones are plastic. All the wood table/altar pieces were also originally found at the Falls of the Ohio.  I used a small folding hand saw and cut the wood to length before bringing it home.  Here’s a few views of the completed sculpture set up by the river.

I had trouble coming up with a title for this work, but finally thought “Mountaintop Minibar” was working for me as much as anything else.  Who knows…I may think of something else in time.

I prefer seeing my work out here by the river.  All the other information in the  pictures just adds to the moment.  I did take a few images of my minibar against a black cloth at the church studio.  Here’s what it looks like by itself and with a detail of the bottles.  So far, it looks like this work will be exhibited in an exhibition in October 2012 and perhaps other opportunities will come up before then.  And now, for the last two images.  Thanks for checking in!

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A Day with Wedgehead

Posted in Absurd, art and environment, collections, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2011| 3 Comments »

We have had a warm and mostly dry autumn thus far at the Falls of the Ohio.  I’m taking advantage of another lovely weekend to go exploring along my favorite spots on the riverbank.  I usually begin by going down to the water’s edge to see if anything new has washed up.  Here are a few of the objects I came across and added to my ever burgeoning collecting bag.  Some of my finds I will use in my sculptures while the more interesting objects will enter one of the various river collections I have been assembling.   As usual, I find some doll or doll element along the river’s edge .  Aside from plastic balls…dolls are the toy that I find the most which has always struck me as being odd. First, I came across this tiny doll with purple hair.  If you look closely you can see burrs that are snagged in her hair-do.  Later, I found this larger doll that was buried in the sand.  I flipped her over and took her “portrait” and then walked away.  It’s very possible that I will find her again in a different context. My most interesting find of the day was this plastic ax-head.  I’m always on the look out for any real artifacts from the Indigenous people who lived here for thousands of years before Europeans arrived, but I have never found even the slightest fragment of pottery or the flakes left over from chipping projectile points.  I think the river here is just too dynamic for those kind of discoveries.  Nevertheless, this plastic ax-head says a lot about the time in which it was made.  First, it is made of hollow plastic which is of course not nearly as durable as flint.  Second, it clearly says where it was made which in this case is Hong Kong.  Lastly, it promotes an inaccurate characterization of who are native people are.  Here are the images that are on this souvenir tomahawk.

After scoping out the river’s edge…I move up the riverbank with the larger pieces of Styrofoam I have found and submit to my own urge to make something.  Here is this day’s figure starting with the head in progress.  You can gauge its size from my feet which are intruding in the bottom edge of the frame.  As I walk along, I’m also looking for expressive sticks to use for arms and legs.  The only tool I’m using here is my pocket knife.

After putting all the pieces together…I move back down to the river and try to capture another portrait in the context of this day.  Usually, I take several images and a few of these capture how active the river was.

The sunlight was bright on this day and cast strong shadows which I like.  One difficulty of photographing polystyrene is that it is so relentlessly white that it reflects the light so strongly often washing out my images.  Sometime’s it is if the light is emanating from the figure itself.  I’m sure photographing some of my sculptures with infrared film would yield interesting results.

The last picture I snapped is where I left the figure before heading home.  I came to call him “Wedgehead” because of the shape of his noggin.  He was last seen standing in what looks to be tall grass, but is in fact young willow trees that sprouted since the last flooding.

Soon, all the leaves will be down and the bare bones of the Falls of the Ohio will show itself.  The sense of space will also greatly change creating another stage for the drama that is the Falls of the Ohio.  Have a great week everybody!

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Pied Woodpecker Sighting

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, animals, Art, art and environment, birds and birding, creativity, environmental art, nature, nature photography, Originality, recycled art, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

After a brief cold and wet spell I made it out to the Falls of the Ohio last Saturday.  The Ohio River was rising as were the temperatures which had dipped into the 30 degree mark  for a few days.  One look around here and there is no doubt that it is autumn in Kentuckiana.  The willow leaves were noticeably yellower and many of the trees were in the process of losing their foliage.  I was scouting around for what else was different in this environment and spotted this tiny butterfly moving about.

This small whitish butterfly was sipping on something on the sand.  I was practically nose to nose with it and recognized that it was a member of the skipper family.  Last year was such a banner year for butterflies at the Falls and to my eye…this year was a noticeable drop off.  After following this skipper for a few yards I was able to take this image of it.  At home I identified it as the Common Checkered Skipper (Pyrgus communis) which is considered a very common species.  It seemed rather late in the season for a butterfly, but I was able to observe a few rag-tag Buckeye butterflies and a few tattered Viceroys too.  Funny how I had never noticed this skipper before.  Nevertheless, I felt a sense of personal discovery as though I was the first person ever to see this tiny revelation. It was about this time I heard a distinctive tapping coming from a stand of willow trees.  Somewhere a woodpecker was plying its trade.

With its jet-black wings, white body, and bright red bill this bird is easy to identify…it’s the Pied Woodpecker.  About this time of year the northern population of this interesting woodpecker begins its southerly migration to the warmer climes of Central America.  Although I had added this bird to my “Life List” while on a family trip to Wisconsin…this was the first Pied Woodpecker I have seen at the Falls of the Ohio.  I observed it moving up and down the trunks of the willow trees exploring the crevasses in the bark for small insects.  It likes to move head down in its search for food like nuthatches are known to do.  Every now and then it would use its bill to chip away the wood to uncover the bugs it sought and it seemed quite unconcerned about me taking pictures of it.  I snapped as many as I could as I followed it on its path through the woods.

Soon it came to a grove of trees that were covered in wild grape vines.  The Pied Woodpecker explored the bark here too, but I saw it augmenting its diet with the tiny fruits this vine was producing.  Every once in a while it would make this nasally sound that I tried imitating.  Fortunately, this bird didn’t take offense and fly away.  Perhaps it “cut me some slack” for at least trying to talk to it in its own language…or at least that was my thought at that moment.

From the vine-covered trees, the woodpecker next flew to a large log with a large exposed root mass.  When this tree was living it must have been huge. The Pied Woodpecker didn’t linger here long and I watched its rising and dipping flight pattern as it crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky.  I wonder if I will ever see another of its kind here again?  That’s the funny thing. There are birds that are considered common and regularly recorded here that I have yet to see.  I’ve seen them elsewhere, but not here at the Falls of the Ohio.  That’s the thing about birds…their extreme mobility can make them unpredictable!

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Coal and the Red-tailed Goggle-eye

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and environment, creativity, ecosytem, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, Ohio River, recycled art, Styrofoam, watershed, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 14, 2011| 6 Comments »

I’m at the Falls of the Ohio again because the Ohio River has been priming my subconscious all week with the sound of running water.  I am also very close to finishing the piece I’m making for an invitational art exhibit I’m participating in which revolves around the issue of coal and mountain top removal.  This is a topic of some importance in Kentucky.  We have a love/hate relationship with coal.  On the one hand it is an energy resource we have in some abundance and it does provide much-needed jobs and revenue, however, the toll it takes on everything it touches is also well documented. Over the last few posts you have seen some of the process I’ve been involved with the coal the Ohio River has deposited at the Falls.  Today I’m gathering the last of the coal I need for my art.

The spring floods of 2011 washed a lot of coal into the park.  My “usual” Falls of the Ohio project touches upon another important issue which is the quality of our number one vanishing resource… fresh, clean water.  As is the case with most aspects of the environment, few issues stand in isolation from all the other problems out there.  Considerable overlapping is the norm which makes all these problems that much more complex and challenging.

The piece I’m making for this invitational exhibit isn’t intended to be a didactic one.  I’m not sure that screaming at people ultimately does much good when it comes to something as complicated as the coal issue.  I also don’t pretend to have the answers.  I’m hoping that the artwork I’m making with this coal will operate effectively just under the surface of people’s imaginations where it might linger long enough to resonate.  We will see.  In the meantime, I’ve “enjoyed” working with this material.  I have decided that it does have an odd beauty of its own especially when the river tumbles away its rough edges.  I have found simply creating small mounds of coal whether in old car tires or just by itself to be a reflective act.

After playing with the coal for a few hours, I decided it was time to do something else.  It has been a while since I last baited a hook and went fishing.  I got the idea when I came across a long willow branch that a beaver had gnawed all the bark off for food.  Looking around the riverbank, I also found a hook, lead sinkers, and enough waste fishing line to outfit my found pole.  Fishing floats are something I find in abundance and always have a few in my collecting bag. I also pick up the lead weights that other fishermen lose because this metal doesn’t need to be out here either.  Looking under rocks, I scrounged up enough insect larvae to use for bait.  Now I was ready to throw my line in the water…and wait.

I guess about twenty minutes passed before I got my first nibble.  I lost my bait several times before I was successful in hooking a fish.  The sight of my float going completely under the water was a thrilling one!

This fish didn’t give me much of a fight.  After a few runs in different directions I could feel it tire and lifted it out of the water. To be honest, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what species this was, but I know that I have never seen anything quite like it here before.  It’s coloration was unusual with its light blue body and bright red tail.

It’s eyes are large and I surmised that it usually lives in the depths of the river where light rarely reaches it.  I thought it had some similarities to the sauger which is a walleye relative and also found here, but it lacked the sharp teeth that the sauger has.  It’s gill covers or operculums were metallic and reminded me of the bottoms of aluminum cans that the river washes into the park.

I quickly took a few more photographs and then released this fish safely back into the river.  When I got home I tried to look up some information about my catch, but couldn’t find much about it.  Apparently, Rafinesque and LeSueur, two early naturalists who described many of the fish found in the Ohio River and Falls of the Ohio, were mum on this subject which was disappointing.  Until I can locate better reference material I decided to just call it something descriptive like the Red-tailed Goggle-eye.  Of course, any information that any of you out there might have would be welcomed! Seeing this fish I also had another more disturbing thought.  What if this is evolution in action and the continued degradation of the environment is shaping new species from older ones that can deal with the new reality?  Evolve or die. This brought the question of man as an agent of evolutionary change to mind since we are culpable for many of the changes going on in the larger world.  Well for now, I’ll just sleep on it and see what turns up tomorrow.  See you by the water!

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It’s Early October

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature, nature photography, public art, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

After the briefest cold period, we have had a glorious week of perfect weather.  It’s been good to get back to the river after having the focus of the project shift away from the park and into a gallery.  Looking around, you can begin to detect those subtle shifts in color beginning to happen in the tree leaves.  Actually, there is quite a bit of color all around when you begin paying attention to it.  For instance, check out this morning-glory vine.

This purple flower is practically glowing.  And the Viceroy butterfly is all in burnt orange as it mimics the Monarchs that currently are migrating on their way south.  That large black vein crossing this butterfly’s hind wing is found only on the Viceroy.

Now blooming at the Falls are several species of the Composite flower family that look so close to one another that you need to have a few on hand for direct comparisons.   Many are yellow in color like these twin blossoms.

When I wasn’t noticing the local color, I was poking around for old booze bottles.  I found a few more to add to another piece I’m making at home.  I also came across the remains of another bowling ball and I added this one to my collection.  This is how I found it.

At first I thought I was going to dig this ball out of the dirt, but I didn’t need to.  What you see is essentially all there is!  It’s just a chip of the ball that happens to include a couple of finger holes, the ball’s brand name, and the name of its former owner…Gladys Coons inscribed on the surface.  I dropped the fragment into the water to clean it off and the metallic colors begin to shine.

With the Styrofoam I also found out here I fashioned yet another figure and posed it next to an old tire that I had placed river found coal into.  First here’s the tire nearly overgrown with plants since my last visit.

Now for a more eccentric view with my Styro-figure posed above it followed by a shot that places things in better perspective.

It’s been a few years since I worked with coal as intensively as I have this year.  Our spring floods did a lot to redeposit this mineral in the form of rounded coal pebbles and gravel.

I reposed this simple figure several times mostly in the area that had the most coal deposits.  Much of the time I was filling empty bottles with coal for that other project I mentioned.  In places you can find “beaches” of coal gravel several inches deep.  Intermixed with the coal are white mussel shell fragments and a bit of brown tree bark.  I will post images of my bottle sculpture once it is finished.  For now, I will leave with a picture of where I left this particular figure in the park.  I found a different arm and placed this piece in the context of these beautiful flowers.

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Bellarmine University Exhibition

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, collections, creativity, environmental art, Green, Louisville, Kentucky, recycled art, unusual collection, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 24, 2011| 10 Comments »

Hard to believe a week has passed since this exhibition opened and summer has made room for autumn as well.  Such is the passing of time.  As promised here are a few views of the show my work is in which opened at Bellarmine University’s McGrath Gallery on September 16.  The exhibit is entitled “Outcasts and Artifacts, artwork from a disposable world”, “Al Gorman and Scott Scarboro”.  I snapped a few installation views before people arrived for the opening.  Thanks to friends and family as well as a well-timed snippet in the local paper… a good mix of folks came out to see our work.

I have a lot of stuff I’ve gathered and made to select from over the years and I decided now was a good time to see my sign collection hanging on a wall.  I found that I still enjoy looking at these artifacts.  I like hand painted signs and one of my very first jobs was working in a sign shop.  I have this idea about history being interpreted from examining the existing fragments and this collection fits.  I also like finding the occasional sign where the universe is seemingly “speaking” to you by providing enigmatic clues.

My “Fake Food Collection” was another one of my various collections I put on display.  I have shown this before, however, it seems each time I go to the river I find another piece or two for it.  As a result, this collection keeps getting bigger and bigger and no longer  fits in the Styrofoam box I use to store it.  I found every piece at the Falls of the Ohio courtesy of the Ohio River beginning eight years a go.  These are the pieces I did find and I often wonder about the ones that got away!  To me, all the predominantly plastic representations of food are another signal of our disconnect from nature.  The smell of the plastic is really noticeable.  I think this collection presents initially as something humorous until the reality of it sets in.  This seems to be a part of my art’s modus operandi.

Among the sculptures I displayed are a couple of early pieces that I have never exhibited before.  Such is the case with “Fang” on the right and my version of the meeting of the explorers “Lewis and Clark”.  “Fang” still has its original dirt on it.  Also in this shot are my “Squirt Gun Collection” and a small predatory animal I called the “River Ghost” which I featured in a blog post last year.  Most of these Styrofoam sculptures I consider to be “relics” of a larger process I engage in and weren’t originally intended to be stand alone objects.  Although I have saved many works over time, the vast majority of them were left behind to await their fates in the park.

Scott Scarboro is an interesting artist who lives in New Albany, Indiana that also works with found objects and materials.  His stuff is more “urban” than mine and he makes use of old toys and yard sale and flea market finds.  He likes to tinker with the mechanical and electrical workings in these toys so they neither move nor sound as originally intended.  Of late, Scott has been exploring the uses of sound in sculpture in public art settings.  The paintings began life as wall paper remnants that then became drop cloths that Scott worked back into. Scott and I have been friends for many years and our artistic paths seem to intersect frequently.

Another view from the gallery.  Scott made the robot painting as well as the lamp.  The two of us spoke to an evening art appreciation class at the university that went really well.  We were able to engage the class with our art and ideas and I believe most of the students were not art majors? As a result of our talk many of these students came out for the opening reception.

Two “devilish” works by me and Scott.  The Styrofoam sculpture I entitled “Faun or Blue-tongued Devil” and the wall piece  Scott made using a toy jet fighter plane.  One idea that both of us like working with is “repurposing”  existing objects and making new statements from them.  The world is after all already filled with a multitude of objects that can be reinterpreted without using freshly extracted resources from nature.

Also in the show were two Styro-turtles I’ve made.  The white one was featured in one of my recent posts as the “Cottonwood Turtle”.  I was pleased by how that story and images turned out.  Both turtles include old bicycle helmets in their making.  The black one’s body under the helmet is actually a foam wig stand in the shape of a human head.  For many of the works I presented, I also included laminated hard copies from my blog posts that showcase the sculpture on exhibit.  I have to say that I still prefer seeing my works in the contexts of where they were created and as a result I probably don’t pursue the exhibition opportunities available to me.  In closing, here is one final shot featuring three of my pieces and a shameless sign I painted to get gallery visitors to also visit my riverblog!  I still feel that this is the best place to get a fuller sense of what I’m doing at the Falls of the Ohio.  All the rest is fragmentary and tells a smaller part of the story.  My thanks go out to Bellarmine University and Caren Cunningham for the invitation to exhibit and Laura Hartford for all her hard work in preparing for this show.

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Black as Coal

Posted in Art, art and environment, creativity, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, Ohio River, recycled art, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 18, 2011| 3 Comments »

I was looking for materials for a new project I’m working on and came upon this event on the driftwood pile at the Falls of the Ohio.  There is so much wood massed and interlocked with itself that I wondered if fire could be a possibility here?  The answer to that question is obviously yes.

I don’t know what started the fire…it could have been set by man or it could have been a lightning strike.  The latter part of our summer has been dry. The fire was quick and essentially burned the surface of most of the larger logs out here as black as coal. I noticed that part of this raft of wood snagged next to this brick foundation of a building that has been a wreck as long as I have been coming out here which is over twenty years now.  I don’t know what this building was originally used for and I wonder if this could have been some person’s house once upon a time?  That might not be right since this area is prone to flooding nearly every year.

One thing I know was that someone tried to put this fire out.  I came across quite a length of fire hose that had been cut.  The canvas and rubber hose bore a stamp that said it was made in Canada.  Perhaps the hose was severed because the fire swirled quickly becoming unpredictable and all this wood presented many opportunities for hang ups and snags. It would be hard to maneuver over it.  Seems there was a cut and run moment and the hose was left behind.  A sculptor friend of mine, Don Lawler, said that cut lengths of fire hose are perfect for protecting the edges of his limestone sculptures when he hoists them into to position with his ropes and crane.  I think I will salvage some of this hose for my sculptor friends.

One reason I was on the driftwood pile was to look for empty booze bottles.  I collected a variety of them in different sizes and made from both glass and plastic.  They had to have their caps still on them and I preferred that their labels were soaked off by the river.  A found quite a few today to go with the ones I have been collecting over the summer.  I’m participating in a group exhibit where the artists address in some way the issues of mountain top removal and our need for coal.  I have been filling up both bottles and discarded tires with the coal chunks and  gravel that washed into here during the last flooding which also brought in all the driftwood that recently carbonized.  Searching under the vines I did find pockets of coal gravel that were several inches deep in places.  When I open up each empty bottle there is this heavy malted alcohol aroma that get neutralized by the coal.  I’m still working on my coal piece and in the meantime…my exhibit at Bellarmine University with Scott Scarboro opened a couple of nights a go.  I’ll post a few shots of the installation in my next post, but in closing here is one view of materials in my church studio room on Barrett Avenue.  See you soon.

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The Black-billed Heron

Posted in Absurd, animal art works, Art, art and environment, birds and birding, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, nature, nature photography, Ohio River, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2011| 12 Comments »

It’s the Falls of the Ohio State Park in late summer.  We haven’t had any significant rain in a few weeks and the fossil beds are exposed as the river has retreated away.  This isn’t a permanent condition…just the way it is during this season. Visitors are walking over the rocks and admiring the many ancient fossil corals that during the rest of the year are under water.

The best time to get a sense of the extent of the fossil beds is during summer.  From the top of the riverbank you can get a good overview of the area.  You can see across the fossil beds to the high wall that keeps the Ohio River at bay. Bird watchers are scoping the rocks and the top of that wall on the look out for seasonal birds or that once in a lifetime rarity.  Well today was their and my lucky day!  I was sitting by the picnic table when in the far distance I noticed something large and white winging its way across the ancient limestone terrain.  At first I thought it was a pelican, but it clearly wasn’t big enough.  That’s when I heard one of the bird watching flock who also spotted it say that he thought it was a heron or egret of some kind.  I grabbed my camera and hustled down to the river.

I watched the white bird circle the area by the lower tainter gates and I anticipated its possible landing spot.  As I approached the area my mental field guide was going through all the possible species.  Great Egrets are seasonally common here and while they are white…they do not possess a black bill.  One white wader that does have a black bill is the Snowy Egret, however, it is smaller and has black legs with yellow feet.  Snowy Egrets come to the Falls but they are less common.  It couldn’t be a Whooping Crane because I couldn’t see any black tips on the wings.  For a moment, I even thought this bird might even be an albino.  Nevertheless, it was shaping up to be a mystery which are among the most fun birds of all.

I saw the bird alight in the sedges and grasses near the river which is where I took these photographs.  This beautiful bird was distinctive with its black bill and white head crest.  It’s tail feathers were also tipped in black.  I watched it catch and eat grasshoppers that were numerous in the weeds.  For the moment, I would concentrate on taking pictures and being discreet.  I could always identify it later in the comfort of my home, but already I knew it wasn’t a bird normally found here or in our country.  This bird’s beauty was enough and knowing its name wouldn’t make it more beautiful.  Time stood still until the bird spooked or just decided to fly off.  Later that day I saw the heron return to the river and I hung around hoping for just this opportunity.

I was struck by the great contrast between the snow whiteness of the bird and the dingy black of the tire resting in the water.  I thought the heron was exhibiting signs of distress or anxiety, but I was surely projecting my own feelings onto this animal…or maybe not!

In one of the most curious bird behavior moments I have ever observed, the heron walked over to a group of discarded plastic bottles and started hitting them with its bill.  I guess it was just checking them out?  A passing fisherman came too close and the bird was gone for good.  I took a deep breath and hoped that I had a few good images and turned for home.  The bird turned out to be the Black-billed Heron which is more accustomed to being found around the heat of the equator.  Few confirmed records exist of this species being seen this far north. But since it’s been hot just about everywhere this year, the right conditions were present for it to make this appearance.  This same individual would create quite a bird watching stir wherever it was sighted in the United States and even made the cover of several bird watching magazines.  The Falls of the Ohio was as far north as this bird was seen and for me it was a happy privilege to see a bird that even John James Audubon never saw.

Postscript:  Readers familiar with the riverblog know that the Black-billed Heron was made with materials deposited at the Falls of the Ohio.  These found materials include:  River polished Styrofoam, plastic, sticks, river tumbled coal, the black tail feathers were cut from the soles of cast off shoes.  Thanks for tagging along on this avian adventure!

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The Toughest Month

Posted in Absurd, Art, art and environment, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, fresh water, public art, recycled art, sculpture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2011| 9 Comments »

August has been the toughest month and I have two measly posts to show for it.  The ankle is better and thanks for all the well wishes I received.  I guess my other newsworthy item is that my trusty camera broke while on expedition to the Falls of the Ohio.  I received the dreaded “lens error restart the camera” message and of course everything I tried after reading whatever I could about fixing it…didn’t work.  Now, I will need to have the pros look at it.  Although I have  never dropped my camera, I am, however, guilty of working in a dusty and sandy environment.  I’ll bet a well placed grain of sand is all it takes to render the most precise instrument useless.  If my camera proves to be a lost cause…then this was its last adventure.

A couple of weeks a go I was approached by a person who was looking for a friend that was last seen at the Falls of the Ohio.  The missing individual had made a phone call to his friend stating where he was and that he would remain at the Falls for a while, but had not been heard from since then.  I was being asked to guide the concerned friend to the places mentioned in their phone conversation.  Perhaps the missing individual would still be there or some clues as to what happened to him?  Our journey took us to the western section of the park over the sweltering fossil beds.  Like I mentioned earlier, August has been a bear.

We walked by large areas of purple loosestrife flowers that were growing in the moist soil and sands near the edge of the river.  For a few moments, we lingered over the flowers and watched all the insects drawn to them.  There was a profusion of butterflies and more than a few exotic wasps and bees.  Each year it seems the loosestrife flowers are spreading and their nectar should make the insects very happy.  The place we were walking to was just a head of us.  I featured it in a recent post called the “Mahalo Tree House”.  It’s a wonderful old cottonwood tree that recently was turned into a “club house” by kids I think?  Here are two recent views as we approached the tree.

My guest became excited to see this unique tree house and mentioned to me that it was exactly as described in his friend’s conversation.  We walked over a couple old fire pits that proved this site had been occupied recently.  I made a few mental notes of other changes I observed since my last visit, but kept those to myself.

My companion grew excited when he spotted the plastic rabbit in his clay niche.  This was one of the details mentioned by the missing friend. There was another clue as well.

The garbage bag that had been left behind during my last visit was now full.  Who was going to carry it up the bank to dispose of in a responsible manner?  There were other signs that started to make me feel uneasy.  What do you make of this?

Do you think it is respectful to the tree to spray paint it?  I think not.  There were other ill omens all around us.  Someone or some group had been decorating the place with found bones.  Several clusters of bones were hanging on the end of strings attached to the tree.  Here’s an example of this.

The oddest bone creation, however, was the weird face we found.  It was made from a pelvis and vertebrae that I think originally belonged to a small deer.  Some man-made elements in the form of fishing float eyes and a fake flower were also added.  It took me a moment to register where the eyes might have originally came from.  Black magic marker was used to draw additional designs on the bone.  The head’s eyes had a way of following you around the interior of the tree house.  The bone additions definitely made the place seem primitive.

My guest and I were feeling uneasy when we made the discovery.  We found the missing friend or what was left of him behind the main trunk of the cottonwood tree.

It was too difficult to tell if the friend had succumbed to natural causes or had help of some kind?  All that was left were the bones and fortunately none of them was used to decorate the tree.  One part of the mystery had been solved…the friend had been found.  It was decided to leave the remains were they lay so that law enforcement could conduct their investigation.

All that was left now was to say good-bye and retrace our steps along the river.  My companion was quiet for the most part.  The one time he broke his silence was when we passed two barefoot boys playing next to the water.  The surviving friend said it reminded him of his own childhood when he and his late sidekick would skip rocks off the surface of the Ohio River.  Here’s hoping September will be a kinder month.

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Cubby and Rock the Rocks

Posted in Absurd, Art, birds and birding, creativity, environmental art, Falls of the Ohio, nature photography, Ohio River, recycled art, sculpture, Styrofoam, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2011| 6 Comments »

It’s been nearly a month since I last visited the Falls of the Ohio.  My still tender twisted ankle and the brutal heat of this summer has me concentrating on other projects and exhibits.  Admittedly, I haven’t posted much and that periodic malaise that can affect bloggers hit me too.  My ankle is slowly getting better (intimations of mortality!) and with hope the oppressive heat is relenting?  I made the short trip from my home in Louisville to Clarksville, Indiana where the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center is redoing its exhibits.  I’m glad the mammoth skeleton will still be on display and I’m curious what else will be featured?

Each year the center’s foundation stages its “Rock the Rocks” fundraiser which features a silent auction.  I usually contribute one of my sculptures made from the river-born junk I find in the park.  This year my donation is entitled “Priscilla” and she’s a piece I made years a go and predates the old riverblog.  I hope she finds a nice home.  “Priscilla” with her dark eyes has a depth to her that seems to raise many questions.  Well, that’s how I read her!  The main question remains…why do we do the things we do that we know can harm the environment?  “Priscilla” knows she shouldn’t exist.

After my errand, I hung around to look at the Ohio River as it presents itself at the Falls of the Ohio.  Most of the fossil deposits are exposed and in my mind I’m walking out among them which in reality is always an interesting experience.  It’s easy for me to fantasize that I’m on another planet or a different place in time.  I know, however, that it will be a while yet before I wade across the shallow river and back out upon the water-scalloped limestone.  I don’t think my ankle is ready for that test yet.  It would be a long way to limp back.

I stopped and talked with several birders who had their scopes and binoculars fixed upon the distant fossil beds. Summer shorebirds were present including Great Egrets, Caspian Terns, Spotted Sandpipers, and an uncommon siting of an American White Pelican which had just flown away!  I missed it but was glad to hear that it had been seen regularly over the last three weeks.  I recall a few years a go, there was another young male bird that hung around for a while.  Once upon a time they were seen as far east as the Miami River in Ohio, but that was in the 19th century.  Now the pelicans are seen more frequently and might be extending their range again eastward along our great rivers.

I enjoy birds of all kinds and near the birdwatchers, a male American Goldfinch fed on sunflower seeds from one of the center’s flower beds.  I don’t know exactly what it is about the attraction to birds, but it lifts my spirits.  I go back to my car and collect the surprise within.  Although I haven’t physically been out here as much as a usually am…my thoughts don’t stray far from this environment.  I made a new figure in my basement and I’m eager to snap a few shots of it in the context of where the materials I used to construct it were found.

This is “Cubby” and he is eager to see the world.  We walked along the trail together and came across this spot where the morning-glory vines were growing in profusion.  Only in the shade did we find the blossoms still open.  The heat of broad daylight would shrivel them to nothing.  Along our walk we could hear the sound of cicadas and the smell of sun tan lotion was lingering in the air.  It’s the weekend and the park is full of visitors.

As we walk through the grass, the blades come alive with the many grasshoppers that are present.  “Cubby” and I check them out and we also notice a few nice Buckeye butterflies flitting about with their beautiful blue eye spots checking us out too.

It’s amazing what a month can change around here.  It seems so verdant and overgrown.  We find evidence that some of the recent and powerful thunderstorms have blown over a few old trees.  This seems to happen with increased frequency.  When it does rain, it seems to be accompanied by strong winds and torrential downpours.  There is so much moisture and energy in our weather systems as the fronts move along the Ohio Valley.

It’s been a year of contrasts.  Our spring was so wet and led to some flooding.  Several months later the driftwood evidence is all around.  The park staff have had their hands full re-establishing the walking trails.  Chain saws and small bulldozers are required for that job.  All this wood will just sit here until it decays or washes away with the next flood.  The Ohio River is a dynamic element that continually shapes this park.

I made “Cubby” for an exhibition that will be held at Bellarmine University in September.  It’s a two person show and my exhibit partner, Scott Scarboro, also uses found materials, but his works are of a more urban nature.  He likes using discarded mechanical toys and using sound in his work.  I will post more about that show as it happens.  As for “Cubby”, he derives his name from the unique head-gear he wears.  Last year, I came across the “skin” of a river-exploded teddy bear and saved it into the collecting bag.  This is how that find manifested itself.  To further reinforce the bear cub idea I added a small plastic bear head image that I think came from a pacifier.  It holds his breach cloth in place which comes from the lining of an old glove.  And in case you were wondering…he’s also anatomically correct underneath.  If you are bothering to cover the loins…there might as well be something there!!!  Well, I guess that’s it for now.  It feels good to blog again.

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