Last Saturday was a fun adventure for me and involved a few more people than usual too! First, the morning light was fantastic and I met photographer Ross Gordon down at the Falls who is working on a photo project of his own. We walked to my outdoor studio to see how things were weathering. Everything looked relatively undisturbed.
On our way back to the parking lot, I was able to locate the Pied Woodpecker that had taken up temporary residency in the park. My friend saw this as a great opportunity for a one of a kind photograph. Here’s Ross in action while the bird looks on with puzzled expression.
After that early adventure I had an appointment at the Interpretive Center I didn’t want to miss. I had received a nice invitation to hang out with Girl Scout Troop # 1008 while they pitched in to help clean up the park.
My friend Laura who works at Gallery Hertz has a daughter in scouting. Since Troop #1008 had already scheduled a clean up at the river…she wondered if I could join them to talk about what I do in the park? I began by showing the troop the bottle piece I had just finished and photographed before catching up with them this morning. After the show and tell, the gloves were put on and the litter bags were distributed as the young women started cleaning up around the Interpretive Center. They did a really good job too as shown by this large sheet of plastic they pulled out of the underbrush.
I followed around collecting trash with the scouts and made this figure from the junk I found. I left him standing near a path along the Woodland Trail.
The figure included bits of hickory nuts, wood, and plastic. The small purple ball was a good find and helped make this piece more interesting. The nose is part of an old corn cob.
My composite figure had to give a little shout out to the troop for their hard work. In what seemed a short amount of time, an impressive pile of trash bags appeared by the park’s dumpster. In a great mood…the clean up team assembled for this celebratory photograph.
After the troop left, I hung out at the river for another hour or so. There was still a little color left in the trees that soon would be gone.
The little dark dot near the center of the above image is a fisherman I had been watching. He has hip waders on which has helped him get out to a channel where the fish were biting. While working with the girl scouts, the fisherman passed by on his way home. He was nice enough to show me his impressive stringer of fish.
He had some nice saugers (dark and mottled) and a few hybrid stripped bass. I’m always pleasantly surprised by some of the fish I see being caught out here. Well, that’s all the time I have today. Have a great week and see you later!
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 