Into the Warmth of a New Spring

Spring has definitely arrived and the land is turning green.  I love watching this verdant transformation as the Falls of the Ohio becomes a garden again.  We had a weary winter and so seeing the sun more regularly warms the heart and imagination.  These are images from my last visit to the park.  I believe I downloaded about seventy or eighty pictures which is about normal for one of my excursions.  I can find personal interest in most everything I come across which makes editing and creating some sort of post a fun challenge.  I spend hours on site and then a good amount of time at home looking at the pictures and wondering how to put order to any of it?  Usually, I try to give some representative sense of what the day was like.  I believe I could create all sorts of permutations and stories from just a single trip…but, that would cut into my time to be outdoors and fill my lungs with fresh air.

I began the morning in the western section of the park.  Driftwood and junk have been driven against the Indiana bank of the Ohio River.  Prevailing currents and high water have formed this log raft against the shoreline.  Future high water will eventually send this material over the dam and under the railroad bridge and then throughout the park.  Moving to the river’s edge I surprised more than one sleeping duck and see my first Great Egret of the year.  I tried sneaking over the driftwood to take a picture of the egret which was feeding at the water’s edge.  I must be losing my touch because the wary egret spotted me and took off.  This duck standing on one leg, however,  was more obliging.

Here’s a view from the western section of the park.  Walking along the water’s edge I came across all manner of bric-a-brac some of which made it into the collecting bag.  Upon returning to my outdoor studio, I photographed a few of my newest “treasures” on the sand which included many toys.  I have a compulsion to pick this stuff up and order it into various collections…but other than that I’m not sure what I will eventually do with much of this plastic.  I am a believer, however, that someday I will have an idea or inspiration and I will follow that.  I still feel there is something here to explore between the poles of what these items are intended to represent and what they are in reality.

I keep finding toy wheels of all different sizes and slowly an idea for a wall installation is taking place in my mind.  I have an offer to show work in a show during the 2014 season and so I set a goal to realize this “wheel piece”.  Here are two views of one of my more interesting finds of this day.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find this blue crayfish while it was alive.  By far, most of the crayfish I have seen have been brown in color.  I wonder if it was crushed by the logs rolling in the high water?  I don’t know which species of crayfish this is, but apparently blue crayfish are a genetic color morph.  There is one species that is now bred to be blue for the aquarium pet trade.  The way the grains of sand fit around the exoskeleton gives a sense of how a fossil might be formed if given the right conditions and deep time.  I picked it up and held it in my hand and just appreciated such a small, but spectacular animal.  I was curious to see how the Flood Brothers from my previous post were holding up and soon I had my answer upon reaching my site.

The Flood Brothers were gone as were several other pieces of Styrofoam!  My small studio area had been rummaged through, but this is not unusual and I kind of expect this to happen.  The stuff I gravitate towards is not the junk other folks look for, however, anybody is welcomed to whatever I’ve cached here.  I have nothing of value here.  There is more.  Apparently, the discoverers of my studio were carrying bits of frayed barge cable when they stumbled over my spot.  In order to take the Flood Brothers with them, they had to drop the cables.  After straightening up my studio…I wrapped the three cables into loose coils and photographed them where the brothers once stood.

From experience, if folks are out to destroy something…they usually just get on with it.  I was hoping that whomever took the Flood Brothers had just moved them to a different location to create a vignette of their own.  I decided to scout around to see if I could find my wayward figures and I was partly successful.  Here’s how I found the larger of the Flood Brothers.

About a hundred meters or so from my spot, I came across Flood Brother #2 leaning against this tree.  He was missing many of his features including his eyes and arms.  After hunting around I was able to find a few of his parts.  As for his shorter brother…there was no trace of him.  I kept moving east in my search and discovered evidence that other creatives were in the area recently.  Perhaps the people who made the following statements also played with my figures?

I found this and other sand drawings in the area.  Most of the sand designs were statements of a libertarian frame of mind.  I also found this large spiral made from driftwood that was in the immediate vicinity.

Further west from the spiral was this installation where driftwood was stood on end teepee-style and incorporated with two larger logs that had recently floated into the area.  People seem to like arranging wood in this manner and I have also seen bonfires begun in this way.

I thoroughly checked the area for signs of my missing figure and imagined him riding home in the back seat of someone’s car.  I picked up my remaining Flood Brother and headed back to my studio.  I fixed him back up again.  He’s repaired, but also slightly different now.

This is how I left things on my way back home.  I’ll return in a week and we shall see what if anything happens?  Returning to my car, there was still one more surprise left for the day.  Emerging into the light of a new season, I came across this small Eastern Garter Snake warming itself (much as I had) among the driftwood at the Falls of the Ohio.  See you next time!

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The Flood Brothers

Fog is actually common on the Ohio River, but looking through my images, I’m surprised by how few fog pictures I have taken here.  On my last foray to the Falls, the day began extremely foggy like moving within a cloud.  Visibility was limited.  The railroad bridge was completely obscured, but as the sun rose and the temperature became warmer the fog dissipated quickly.  It was another magical moment of transformation as the receding water-cloud revealed the driftwood bones of the park.

Walking to my outdoor atelier, I passed by this unusual sight.  At first, I thought the large tree stump was a part of this sign, but upon inspection, saw that a single rusty nail attached this sign to the wood.  There is no way this sign could survive the river secured so loosely.  Someone before me found this sign and stuck it on the stump up for grabs in true river junk fashion.  Since I collect signs from the river…this was perfect and I welcomed the new addition to my collection!  After removing the sign from the stump I understood why its original discoverer left it behind.  The sign was on a heavy, thick board that had been routed and painted green with yellow letters.  I stashed the sign under some debris and picked it back up on my way home.  As you can imagine, my wife was thrilled to see it like she is with all the other junk I haul out of here.  I liked the sign’s message which is ecological in its own way.  I wonder where it came from and what kind of electric motors is it referring to…perhaps electric golf carts?  Navigating through the dense driftwood, I made my way to the river’s edge.  Waves were lapping the shoreline and there were other surprises to come.

This is the moment I met the first of the Flood Brothers.  I had heard of them before and I was pleased to finally get to meet one.  They are called the Flood Brothers because in their own “Chicken Little” way instead of the sky falling…they are rumored to believe the world is in imminent danger of being inundated.  For this reason they wear life jackets and flotation devices everywhere they venture particularly along the river.  They are living legends in this part of the world.

This is a close-up portrait of Flood Brother #1…henceforth identified as F.B.1.  He has blue lips like he has been out in the cold too long.  His eyes have this jaundiced quality to them and they are slightly asymmetrical as well.  The ears stick out some and he has spiked hair.  Aside from looking goofy…he is a friendly enough guy and hailed me upon sighting me.  I told him it was a pleasure to meet him and was his brother around too?  As it turns out…Flood Brother #2 was not far away and after walking a short distance along the shoreline, we ran into him as well.

Flood Brother #2 or F.B.2 is the larger and older of the two.  Like his smaller brother he wears a flotation device every where he travels along the river.  You can tell they are brothers because they share some physical characteristics such as large ears and mismatched eyes which are more pronounced in the older brother.  As it turns out, he is also the more nervous of the pair.

I asked them if it was true that they believe the world would be destroyed in a great cataclysmic flood?  For argument’s sake F.B.2 qualified things by saying that more unusual events had happened during the Earth’s long history.  As it turned out, they were more concerned about the quality and quantity of fresh water.  Climate change is rewriting things and there is just so much more “free” water in the system that formerly was locked up as ice.  That energy is changing the weather patterns and redistributing water across the globe.  Some places were now getting too much and other places not enough.  And yes the potential to redraw the world’s coastlines also existed.  Whether all this would happen overnight or over the course of many years seemed irrelevant to the pair.  The life jackets were just a necessary precaution to them because they were conducting their research along the river in all its many moods and it just seemed a logical safety thing to do.  The pair was visiting the Falls of the Ohio and inspecting the park for water-born plastic of which there was plenty to see. As the brothers told me…this plastic has a very good chance of making it into the oceans where it has effects of its own.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they were already preaching to the converted.  Instead, I invited them to my studio under the willow trees to rest and talk further and they accepted my invitation.  My site was just a short distance away.

Looking around the Flood Brothers could see that I was interested in many of the same concerns that they had and wasn’t it all so absurd after all?  I told them my story and that all the stuff they saw in my little area came from the immediate river.  I mentioned that I try to find creative ways to use this junk and to tell the story about a place I find to be very special.  They asked me if I happened to see along the way a nice sign they had attached to a stump?  I confessed that I had and wanted to repurpose it as part of my sign collection.  The Flood Brothers just smiled and said I could have it.  After visiting for a while, it was time for me to go home.  I told the brothers they were welcome to hang out in my site and perhaps I will see them here again?  I liked them as characters.  With one last look back I saw F.B. 1 waving good-bye to me.  I always have an interesting day at the Falls of the Ohio.

This story marks my four-year anniversary on WordPress .  Hard to believe the time has flown by so quickly.  Thanks for tagging along!!

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Big Fish

It’s an unbelievably gorgeous morning at the Falls of the Ohio and I have the park to myself.  The Ohio River has been running high although we haven’t had a lot of rain pass through our area.  Most of this water is probably coming from snow melt and precipitation in the northern section of the Ohio River Valley.  The river is receding and one of the first sights I see are logs that have been stranded on the dam as the water level drops.  These logs will remain balanced here until the river shifts them around again.  As I begin my walk, I see driftwood and trash everywhere I look.

Accessing the bank is tricky and muddy.  I maneuver by walking on the backs of logs and balancing myself with my walking stick.  In areas where the river has dropped back… plastic trash, Styrofoam, and driftwood remain where this detritus floated in.  I like studying the patterns I see in the deposited wood and imagine the swirl of the river in these areas.  Of course, I find other treasures and oddities too.  Here are just a few objects that made it into the collecting bag.

My fake food collection keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Here’s a plastic pickle  I found.  On this day, I also picked up a plastic chicken drumstick, a plastic plum and in the bag already from my last visit are a plastic onion and a plastic cheeseburger!  I find all this plastic food to be an interesting indicator of the times we live in.

This is kind of cool.  It’s a pirate skull with movable eye-patch.  The river has really colored this object.  Here’s something more humorous.

These silly frog sunglasses may be the only amphibian inspiration I receive all year.  In all the years I’ve worked this project, I have come across one actual common toad and two small leopard frogs.  Perhaps the river is just too big and wild here for the frogs?

I decide to walk west along the riverbank and reach areas that are more driftwood than trash.  I always marvel at how the river lays the wood in fairly parallel rows.  That bright reddish-orange object in the foreground is the remains of a life preserver…it is one of two that I find on this day.

Another tree with an intact root mass has been beached by the river.  Notice how all the branches have been knocked off.  This is fairly typical.  The river keeps subdividing these trees into smaller and smaller parts.  Up ahead I notice something that a muddy wave has just returned to the land.  I walk over and check it out and see something I’ve never seen here before.

It’s a big fish, but I don’t recognize the species.  It’s not too bloated and so I examine it more closely.  I think it may be one of those Asiatic carp species that have become so invasive to our bigger rivers?  Recently, in western Kentucky in the Land Between the Lakes area, there was the first ever commercial fishing tournament to try to harvest as many of these large carp as possible.  Strong nets are needed to catch them since they grow big and rarely if ever take a baited hook.  The idea behind the tournament was to  educate people that these fish are good to eat and to try to help create a commercial demand for them.

Here I am holding the fish at arm’s length.  Notice that it has a relatively small mouth.  This fish feeds on microscopic plankton and other tiny food items which is why they are hard to hook by traditional means.  This is a thick-bodied fish with a large head and powerful tail.  I have known that these fish are in the Ohio River, but I haven’t had the chance to inspect one this closely before.  I’ve attached a couple more views of this fish.

By now, you are probably used to my game!  I made this fish from a hunk of Styrofoam I picked up on this day.  The Styrofoam reminded me of a fish and so that’s the direction I took this sculpture. The other found elements include:  fishing bobber eyes, red plastic gills, fins made from wood, shoe soles, and plastic junk.  This is how it looked before I started.

I try to respect the basic shape the river gives me and feel that whatever results… is a collaboration between me and the river.  I don’t cut too much into the polystyrene because I also try not to release many of those tiny white beads back into the environment.  I try to work minimally and to clean up after myself.  It’s not a perfect system, but is what has evolved after so many years of coming out here.  I did find even more Styrofoam on my latest adventure and now just need the time to create something from it all.  My parting shot is the latest image of my outdoor studio.  See you next time from the banks of the Ohio River.

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A Need to Form: Handmade Balls from the Falls of the Ohio

At first it looked like any other ball among the wood chips and I almost passed it by.  After all, balls are the most common toy that I find at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  But something told me to look more closely at this one and that’s when I noticed the network of filaments that were eroding away on the surface of this silvery sphere.  Picking it up, I then realized I was holding something different and to my mind and eye a bit more fascinating too.  Yes, it is a ball, but one made from duct tape!

Over the years I have found several other handmade balls made from different materials and they always elicit wonder in me as artifacts.  There is something in the human need to create form from formlessness that is at the root of creativity and can be seen in this eccentric collection.  I think this can happen reflexively too without deep thought being involved. The largest of these balls would fit comfortably in the palm of your hand and is slightly smaller than an American baseball.  Since most of them are made from various tapes…I’m guessing they are the waste products of work.  What began as something relatively flat gets transformed by the mind and hand into a fully satisfying three-dimensional object that you can grasp, throw, or roll.  For me, there is something appealing art-like in these objects which began life as one thing and by shifting its original purpose and function becomes something entirely different.

Here are two duct tape balls I have found by the river.  The one on the left is pictured on the wood chips and its partner has vestiges of dried paint or primer on its surface.  The spheres are created by layering one flat piece of tape over another until a ball is formed.  It is not necessary to create a ball to dispose of this waste tape, but this is what their makers did…and then it wound up in the river which is yet again another story to ponder.

These two balls are made from stretchy electrical tape and are tight and dense.  I remember that the very first handmade ball I found was also made from this smooth black tape.  When my eldest son was a small boy and needed a project to do involving recycled materials… I helped him construct this circus pull toy from materials found at the river.

At the heart of this toy is a handmade ball made from electrical tape.  My son thought this would make a great prop for a circus lion to stand on while it jumped through a flaming hoop!  Of course, the only fire we actually used came from our imaginations.  The yellow plastic lion was also found at the river and has a nice oily patina on it that comes from being in the river for a while.  Here’s a smaller ball made from green tape.

  I’m sure people are making balls from paper-based tapes too, but these don’t survive being exposed to the elements for very long.

This ball made with cellophane tape is barely holding together.  It’s surface is fragile and the adhesive is losing its bond.  As it starts to peel apart, sand caught between the layers is released.

 

The four balls pictured here are made from compressed aluminum foil.  Perhaps they were used for cooking and once their original purpose was over, the owners rolled the foil around the palms of their hands like one would do to form a ball from either clay or snow.  The funny thing about aluminum foil and the river is that the water somehow squeezes it even more and the ball becomes denser and more solid.  Anyway, I hope you enjoyed looking at this rare and somewhat tongue in cheek odd ball collection where the sum is definitely greater than the parts!  Spring will be arriving soon and the Ohio River is calling…until next time.

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Spray Bottle Triggers

The range of plastic refuse one encounters at the Falls of the Ohio State Park is both numbing (it’s obviously trash and shouldn’t be here) and morbidly fascinating (the design sensibility and colors ) catches one’s eye and occupies the mind.  Consider the variations in something as mundane as “spray bottle triggers” if indeed this is what you call these things?  I’m not sure when I started noticing these objects and photographing them…but here they are.  Each adventure to the river is sure to garner multiple images and story lines that I sift through at my leisure.  Consider this a personal cleansing of the spray bottle trigger palette.  Ironically, much thought went into designing each of these beauties to facilitate dispersal of their contents from plastic bottles.  I like the rotating tips that give me options such as “spray” or “stream” and so forth.  These triggers are ingenious and they do their jobs well.  Without further adieu and fanfare…here are more images from an admittedly odd collection.

 

One final image in closing.  You know you have “arrived” when a cute miniature is produced.  Here’s a recent find from a sandy bank of the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

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The Sun is Up and the River is Down…part 2

As promised here is the second part of the previous post.  I did fill an empty cloth bag with river finds and here are some of today’s choice tidbits.  Once I straightened up my outdoor studio, I dumped the bag out onto the sand and started the sorting process.  I guess I also do a similar thing with my camera except it’s a memory card that gets filled and downloaded into the home computer.  Let’s begin with a few pictures of my newly discovered river treasures in situ.

I like all kinds of references to time.  I have a few other toy clocks and watches I’ve found courtesy of the river through the years.  Interestingly, I haven’t owned a watch personally in over thirty years and don’t want one now.  It seems I can find the time most anywhere I go and at the Falls of the Ohio…I pass by one of the largest clocks in the world.  Let’s see if I have a picture of that I can pull up for you.

Although this is a bit off topic, I thought you might enjoy seeing this mechanical wonder.  This is less than a mile away from my river spot.  It was once a part of a toothpaste factory that moved away a couple of years a go.  The building is a former prison…which is another way to mark time.  My reluctance to wear a watch has more to do with not liking to wear much in the way of jewelry.  Besides who needs the constant reminder?  Meanwhile, back at the river.

Houston…we have a problem.  I’m a plastic astronaut and it looks like the family dog has chewed one foot off!  Having some issues with my helmet too…don’t think I can last long in this alien environment.  This is an American astronaut so designated by the flag patch on his left arm.

I believe this is the smallest doll’s head I’ve ever found.  Here having a potential brain the size of a walnut could be a good thing!  I think I have found enough doll heads over the years to make a totem pole several feet tall and they would graduate from largest to smallest with no two alike.  This guy could be the cherry on top of it all.

 

As regular readers know…I have a thing for wheels too.  These are just the toy wheels I came across today.  I’m surprised by how many of these I have found in just the past two years.  I like them as a collection, but I may use them all in a single artwork.  I watched a depressing documentary today that included such nuggets of information like the average automotive tire takes seven gallons of oil to make.  And you may be thinking that all this petroleum is needed for gasoline?    I see too many real tires in the river as well.

Now how odd is this?  I found three toy hammers within a few hours of each other.  This is the most common toy tool that I find…not screwdrivers or pliers, etc…  At the river, it’s always hammer time, well the one on the far right is technically more of a mallet.  I’m not sure what the blue wheel on the far left hammer is supposed to do?

This is an interesting grouping of character toys.  It includes three dogs, two bones, a Weeble, and a Teletubby(?).  There’s a dog friend from Clifford the Big Red Dog and quick draw Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoon.  The dog sitting on the block has a nice oily river patina that takes years to develop.  The yellow character on the right is still full of mud.

Not everything I find is a toy.  Here are four fishing lures.  These get tangled up in the rocks or snagged on old fishing line.  Notice only the top left lure still has its treble hooks.  In the others, the hooks rusted or dissolved away.  I found a fifth lure after taking this photo.  I need to rephotograph my fishing lure collection because it has become seriously larger over the past couple of years.  You can see an older image in my Pages section.

I picked up all these disposable cigarette lighters today.  I have more at my studio at the church and intend to put them to use one day as well.  This was more of a photo opportunity.  I wanted to see some of the color range this particular make of lighter comes in.  No doubt the color is not light fast and over time would all probably come to resemble each other until the plastic broke down into ever smaller bits.  I also picked up other items such as interesting rootlets and sticks and heavier still…nice potential bases for the sculptures I decide to hang onto.  Well, this wraps up my finds from one particular adventure.  There is always stuff to pick up after the river rises and recedes again.  I wonder what I’ll come across next?

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Unusual Flora at the Falls of the Ohio

It’s been raining off and on for the past three days and so I’ve decided to give the actual Falls of the Ohio a pass this weekend.  That, however, does not mean that my heart and thoughts are ever far from the park.  Looking through my Falls image archive, I have put together a post on a topic that has been concerning me of late.  Increasingly, we feel we can manipulate nature and bend it to our desires without consequences.  Man has this vision that we can force nature into our template and that “she” will obey in predictable, obedient ways.  Ever see a square tomato grown in a cube?  Nature, however, is much more dynamic than we give her credit for and frequently presents ideas of her own.  As regular followers of the riverblog may have noticed new fauna often show up here and the consensus is that their appearance is a result of our altering the environment in myriad ways.  Over the last few years, I have also noticed some previously unknown plants.  Allow me to present a photo-bouquet of highly questionable, potentially toxic, exotic flora.

Meet the Chemical Rose which is a new species I discovered at the Falls last year.  It was found growing by an area where an unknown iridescent sheen was percolating up through the sand.  It has no leaves and aside from its thorny stem, has no photosynthetic ability.  This is a fairly consistent trait of these new plants.  They may be parasitic or fungal-like, but I’m sure there is considerable variation on how they live.  The petals on the Chemical Rose are hard and seem very much like plastic.  More on this later.

It’s beautiful in its own way, but what is it?  For lack of a better name, I call this a Sand Lotus.  It shares some characteristics with the Chemical Rose.  Notice no leaves…doesn’t need them.  It’s roots go down deep in the sand.  Like the previous rose, its petals are hard to withstand the rigors of the river.

I bet I walked by this strange plant many times before something told me to look again.  I call this one the Petrochemical Coleus.  Although it has green leaves, it does not possess chlorophyll.  This specimen was growing up through the driftwood.  It’s small size also makes this one hard to see and find.

Here’s the Flame Nut so-named because what passes for its foliage turns bright red when its seeds mature.  Its leaves feel very much like coarse fabric and it seems to prefer sandy environments as well.

This interesting and dare I say “lovely” flower is the Faux Pink Bell.  It combines characteristics of several of the mutant plants I’ve uncovered.  It possesses hard plastic parts as well as the softer, synthetic petals that are fabric-like.  It grows in highly disturbed, contaminated soils.  Which brings me to a theory I’ve been formulating ever since I first discovered these strange plants.  Although I’ve not done a chemical analysis on them, their resemblance to plastic can not be coincidental?  Plastic is after all organic by definition.  Plastic is derived from petroleum which is an extract from ancient life and I think there is something in the long memory of life that is presenting itself here?  We know that our traditional plastics keep breaking down to the micro level.  These really small particles are absorbed by living tissues.  Is it possible that this plastic pollution is altering life in reaction to the many changes brought about through man’s activities?  Can the long polymer chains connect with DNA?  In effect, Nature is demonstrating that it is even more plastic by molding and forming new species to harmonize with the changed environment.

I came across the Polymer Posy growing in the mud.  I believe this is as much fungus as anything else or a new theory has been presented.  Perhaps this is a carnivorous plant that traps and eats insects?  Upon inspection, there are small entry ways along its base that invite small insects like ants to go inside.

Growing out of the wood chips is this botanical novelty I’ve designated the Yellow Bittercup.  Again, no leaves required.  This flower can appear anytime of the year.  I came across this one last summer.

The Orange Forget-me-not is indeed memorable.  It is encountered among the driftwood and may in effect break down cellulose to create its own plastic structure.  The holes in the flower trap, strain, and direct moisture and nutrients to its shallow root system.  And now for something really spectacular in a twisted way.

I did a massive double take upon encountering the Polyvinyl Palm growing from the poor rocky soil in the western section of the park.  This is easily the largest of the new plants I’ve stumbled upon in my wanderings.  I had hoped to study it more, but another visitor to the park collected it.  We have discovered that it is possible to change the chemical composition of the atmosphere through our combined activities.  I believe we are simultaneously altering through chemistry the very organisms that inhabit this world with us with unintended consequences.  How long will it take before we change ourselves into something different as well?

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Project Reclamation…Views from an Exhibition

I have had a few folks ask about the Project Reclamation exhibit I’m participating in and I thought this post would be a good place to feature this.  The exhibit opened a couple of weeks a go on November 2, 2012 and will run through January 12, 2013.  About a year and a half have passed since curator and artist Mary Margaret Sparks asked me to participate in this invitational exhibit.  There are thirteen artists represented in this group show with a nice cross-section of projects in various media addressing the complex topic of coal its use and extraction.  The Carnegie Center for Art and History located across the Ohio River from Louisville in nearby New Albany, Indiana has done a fine job of installing and interpreting the works and has planned many activities that the public can engage in to learn more about the controversial topic of coal mining through the practice of Mountaintop Removal or MTR.  This is a highly destructive way to extract coal from southern Appalachia’s mountains which also endangers  some of the greatest biodiversity in our part of the world in pursuit of cheap and reliable energy.  To further spur the artists along, the not for profit organization Kentuckians For the Commonwealth invited the participants to Whitesburg in Letcher County, Kentucky to tour Appalshop and watch a few coal-themed documentaries.  A guided tour into coal country provided additional impressions of the mountains and the folks who call this place home.

All of the participating artists had some prior interest either working with coal as a social issue or material substance before accepting the invitation to show.  There is a unity in the belief that the more we degrade the environment, the more we change ourselves and not for the best. For me, my entry came through the related issue of clean fresh water  which is also our number one vanishing resource.  I frequently find river-altered coal at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  Combining this coal gravel with discarded and river found booze bottles gave me an opportunity to work with ideas about consumption and addiction.  The result was my “Mountaintop Mini-bar” sculpture, but I also have six photographs from my “Coal Flake Series” on view as well. My impression of our guided trip to coal country reinforced what I’ve previously seen and experienced.  It seems to me that the people who were sacrificing their land and culture were not receiving much in the way of compensation for our quest for coal.  Regrettably, this is an old tale seen time after time across the globe.  People might think that this is something that only happens in distant poor countries, but we have our own share of material poverty in our own backyard.

Most of the participating artists took considered approaches that referenced and respected the uniquely rich culture of coal country.  Several artists worked with traditional fiber and or needle and thread to produce their statements.  Julie Yoder created a large wall installation, “Appalachian Patchwork”,  assembled with woodcuts on handmade paper.  Patchwork quilting is an important Appalachian art form and Yoder’s piece represents the landscape and local culture as being a composite of unique designs that have come together over time to form a whole.  Mountaintop removal has a way of fragmenting this landscape and disrupting the continuity that life here depends upon for survival.

Other artists utilizing fabric, needle, and thread include Jo Ann Grimes with her sympathetic portrayals of miners.  Joel Darland and his marvelous hand-embroidered quilt squares.  Rachel Brewer’s two embroideries of song birds on dirty furnace filters.  Mary Margaret Sparks’ imposing “Lest We Forget” hand-embroidered and sewn re-purposed fabric waterfall that is a memorial to lost mountain streams and creeks that were damaged by coal mining.  Also in this group is a fascinating video entitled “Harriman” which is the work of Denise Burge and incorporates video, fabric, and thread.  Burge’s video is a statement made in the aftermath of a disaster.  A broken coal slurry dam in Tennessee had poisoned the surrounding watershed and imperiled the health of a community living in the area.  Burge’s video documents some of the clean-up involved and how protective the coal industry is in guarding its own image.

Photographs by Joshua Howard contrast the natural beauty of coal country with the grim realities of the industry.  A more overt political statement comes from Wayne Ferguson who sees Kentucky’s senior senator as being in cahoots with the industry that helps bankroll his re-election campaigns.  Ferguson’s drawings chart the corrupting influences of money and power at the expense of the land and the best interests of the people.

The sense that mountaintop removal is a great calamity for nature at large comes through the works of two artists.  Ceramic sculptor Alex Adams’ piece entitled “Wounded” suggests that MTR mining disrupts the very living tissue of the mountain range. He does this by representing two mountains that have had their peaks literally removed revealing  raw, open wounds.

Painter Michael Koerner’s approach is equally reductive and he comes to a similar conclusion about the fate of the mountains.  His diptych entitled “After the Canaries Left the Coal Mines, the Mountains Began to Leave Appalachia” is an argument reduced to its essential points.  For example, in Koerner’s landscape, the painting is physically divided into two parts suggesting man’s indifference towards nature.  The bare slopes past the forested mountains are a warning of what could occur with unchecked mountain top removal.

One last artist before closing.  Aron Conaway’s work lies at the heart of our culture of consumption.  His work entitled “Billions and Billions Served” features a Ronald McDonald clown driving a toy front loader on top of a large pile of coal.  In his work, Conaway makes it obvious that we are all implicated in the big issues of our day.  The demand for coal exists because we demand the energy to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer time heat.  If we don’t like the side effects of coal mining, perhaps we should speed up our search for alternative energy sources, find ways to curtail our addiction to electricity or both?  The demand for cheap coal and energy is what drives the supply.

The Carnegie Center for Art and History has a nice program of upcoming events that expands the breath of this exhibition.  I have already participated in one gallery talk that drew an interested crowd.  Film screenings, art making opportunities, and a panel discussion on mountaintop removal and renewable energy sources will also be held during Project Reclamation’s run.  There is the hope that this show will travel which will be an added bonus.  Thanks to Mary Margaret Sparks, Karen Gillenwater, and the staff at the Carnegie Center for their hard work.  I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into an exhibition from our area.  My next post will be from the Falls of the Ohio!

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Digital Driftwood: Part II, Wood Mix

Welcome to my second look at wood as expressed at the Falls of the Ohio.  The first post concentrated more on the river and water as an agent of change moving material through the landscape.  This post looks more closely at the driftwood that gets stranded in this southern Indiana park.  I once curated an exhibition at the Louisville Visual Art Association entitled “River Sticks” where all the artworks were made from locally procured driftwood.  The majority of these works of art utilized raw, natural sources, but there is also wood in the mix of a slightly different character.

There is a wooden staircase placed here by the Department of Natural Resources (which maintains this state park) that is a popular access way onto the riverbank and fossil rocks.  It is not unusual during bouts of flooding to see part of this staircase submerged by the Ohio River.  During those moments, all you can do is look from a distance or visit the Interpretive Center.

Over time this staircase has needed frequent repairs as it gets battered by floating logs and tree trunks.  Only after the water has drained away can you walk among the driftwood and see what else made from wood has been left high and dry.

Here’s a dramatic shot of a different staircase that has floated down the river and has been snagged by a willow tree.  Objects stranded in trees bear witness to how high the river rose.

I frequently find wooden pallets and they get snagged in the trees too.  This one is a little different in that it appears the tree is growing through and around this artificial form. Over time, the pallet will fall apart. Perhaps wood is wood, but one can’t help noticing how much milled and processed wood is a part of the mix.  Here are a few other images showing this contrast between natural and man-shaped wood.

Sometimes it seems like there are enough planed boards at the Falls to build a small house. Fishermen and visitors use these planks to span muddy areas and puddles to keep their shoes clean and dry.  All this wood is a disposable resource?  I’ve seen visitors taking lumber out and I’ve done the same.  I like using river-worn cut boards as bases for the Styrofoam sculptures I choose to keep.  To me, even the smallest board tells a story of our relationship to trees and nature.  I tell myself that someday I’ll make some rustic piece of furniture from this wood.  The same processes that break a tree down in the river…do a similar “service” to disposed of wooden furniture.

Here’s a piece of a child’s crib or bed that I found at the river’s edge.

This is one of many table legs and turned pieces I’ve come across.  Sometimes I pick them up and take them home.  I’ve used them on rare occasions in my art, but I have also given many pieces to artist friends to see what they could make of them.  I suppose I could make an homage to  Louise Nevelson’s sculptures, but would prefer to create something more personal.  Nevertheless, I have picked up a few wooden artifacts from the river and here’s how they look collectively.

I left the toes of my shoes sneaking a peak for scale!  Here’s some of the hand-turned and machine-made table legs, chair staves, and spindles I’ve saved.  These artifacts do break down over time and eventually revert back to nature.  Now for a detail.

Here’s a slightly different collection of wooden artifacts I’ve saved over the years.  Some things I recognize and others require pondering to figure them out.

The objects on the right are mostly finials from fence posts.  The circular objects with the holes in them…I’m not sure how those were originally used?  Could they be part of a float system for barge ropes or are they wooden wheels for toys…could they be lids for some kinds of containers?  In this grouping I have also included a small rustic picture frame I found as well as a whittled stick I could tell someone cut and scored and is perhaps the most minimal artifact in my altered wood collection.  I find many board fragments, but I kept one small piece because someone named “Bill” tried routing his name in the wood and drilled a few holes that became bigger as the wood softened and aged from exposure to water.  This piece of wood exhibits several ways we leave our mark on nature.

I also have a sign collection that can be seen in my Pages section.  Most all of them are also made from wood and were once part of this unusual driftwood mix that came from the Ohio River.  I’m thinking of putting my found “Bill” board in that collection because it too is a sign of the times as we lose our ability and desire to write in cursive.  Very few schools in my area even bother to teach this skill anymore.

Not all the driftwood in the river consists of logs, branches, and roots.  Much of my riverblog bears witness to the extent our handiwork pervades the larger environment.  What I see happening in my part of the world I assume is transitioning  simultaneously across the surface of the planet.  We have added our own distinctiveness to the overall material aggregate which challenges our now quaint notions of what is “purely natural”.  I was right when I mentioned in an earlier post that the month of July would find a way to be memorable.  It’s official now, July was our hottest month ever in what is shaping up to be our hottest year ever.  Much of our country is experiencing an intense drought and so I end with a picture of what it looks like when there is too much water.

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Plush Portfolio

I confess that I like the word “plush”.  In my mind it evokes a sense of luxury and well-being.  I roll the word around my mouth like a fine wine and I also get overtones of comfort, safety, warmth, softness, and abundance.  I feel similarly about the word “verdant”, but that’s the subject of another post.  Returning to “plush”…it is also a word used to describe a variety of soft, sewn toys usually made with polyester fibers.  This includes most of the teddy bears and stuffed animals that one is likely to come across today.  In my own family, plush toys are and were among our most beloved and trusted playthings and misplacing or losing one was like losing a member of the family itself.  Which brings me to this portfolio of images taken with found plush toys in situ that I stumbled upon at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  Each toy was probably loved by some child and if these images hold any power it probably derives from feelings of separation and loss.  I’m also interested in them as aspects of our material culture that manifest themselves as more junk for the environment to try to absorb.  All these plush toys were deposited by the Ohio River and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some of these objects probably floated hundreds of miles to reach my camera’s lens.  Here are some of my “favorite” images in this “genre” and I’ll start with the object I’m holding in the first picture.

Once upon a time this was an impressive toy.  I think this is “Pink” from the famous Pink Panther cartoon series.  Lifting it from the mud took some effort because its stuffing has been replaced with impacted mud.  This toy had effectively merged with its muddy matrix.

I also found this cute plush dinosaur embedded in the mud.  Later I set him up on a log and took his portrait in the context of where he was found.  He’s a friendly tyrannosaur photographed against a fossil landscape that predates the real dinosaurs by millions of years.

This was an unusual find.  Later I identified this as a  child’s slipper featuring a Rug-rats character, but it fits my plush category nevertheless!  Now let’s look at some teddy bears.

This was once a member of the Care Bear clan.  Here’s a different kind of bear minus his stuffing.

I came across this unfortunate bear in the sand.  Somehow he lost all his stuffing and was essentially just a hollow skin which I salvaged and used as a costume for one of my Styrofoam figures I later entitled “Cubby”.

This bear was still in the process of arriving by water when I came across him.  The black background is coal gravel and dust while the white dots are the remains of broken clam shells.  I’m sure you will recognize my next find.

My eldest son has the exact sized Pooh bear that he has treasured all his life.  Even though he’s now a teenager, I noticed that Pooh still occupies a prominent place in his room.  Here’s one last bear and its a little different and may not “technically” qualify as a plush toy.  Nevertheless, I found it appealing and I include it with the others.

Let’s try a change of pace and include a few rather small stuffed toy objects I’ve found over the last couple of years.

This looks to be some kind of flamingo head.

I’m not really sure what this might represent…it could be a moon or a vegetable?

Here’s another object I had trouble identifying.  I like how the cockle burrs are hitching a ride on its knitted surface.  Here are few toys that either are or were inspired by Beanie Babies.

The purple reindeer was photographed against the blackness of coal dust and gravel.

I believe this is another beanie baby-styled toy in the form of a purple cow?

I believe this tiny plush toy is meant to represent a killer whale.  Here’s an image that came out of the floods from two years a go.

This guy is clearly an elephant.  When I was a child I had a Dumbo character soft animal toy.

Another hard for me to identify figure, but the destroyed aluminum can help give you a sense of how large this plush toy is.  Could this be some type of Halloween toy?

Over the years I have found many surprises buried in the sand.  When I spotted the above object…I had no idea what it was until I lifted it up.  This is what I found.  I remember staring at the blue eye!

To my surprise emerged the form of this friendly and shaggy green parrot.  I placed him upon a branch for others to find and moved on.  We are getting close to being done!  Here are a few more found figures.

A sharp-eyed observer identified this as the Magician character from the Frosty the Snowman cartoon.  Makes sense to me because I found him right after Christmas of that year.  Could have been some child’s gift that wasn’t properly appreciated and in to the river you go?

I don’t know why I remember this now, but I believe this figure was once used to advertise a barbecue restaurant?  Could have had additional info on the back of the shirt, but I also could be completely wrong about this.  It might simply be a birthday wish novelty.  I think you will recognize this next one.

This isn’t the original Raggedy Ann doll, but a similar conception.  I found it face down in the sand and flipped it over for this photo.

I live in a basketball crazy region, but this is the first time I’ve encountered this object.  I know it references basketball, but what else is it intended to do?  What purpose do the white cords serve?   It definitely has plush elements.

This is me standing in my beat up Falls shoes next to a found plush “dog bone”.    My dog makes short work of any plush toys she comes across.  She knows how to get her teeth around their seams and split their contents open.  This makes me wary to think that this orange bone might be a dog’s toy…but what else could it be?  The Ohio River is always presenting me with such conundrums, however, I enjoy putting on my thinking cap and trying to puzzle them out.  I hope you liked some of the images and I will leave you with this final one of the parrot in the place where I left him for others to find.

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