On a recent expedition to the Falls of the Ohio I came across a small section of the Ohio River within the park that surprised me because of all the coal I found.    Over this warmer than usual January, the Ohio River has fluctuated due to the rain and snow that have fallen upriver from us.  While it made for interesting photographs, the contrast between the muddy waters and the blackness of the shoreline was also disturbing.  It made me wonder if this would become part of the new normal conditions that I would keep encountering upon each visit to the park?  As I walked along with my camera and collecting bag in hand I kept wondering why all this coal was showing up here? I kept looking for witnesses that might provide clues and insights into this alarming situation at the river.

The first potential witness I came across was this toy reindeer who was staring up at the sky with eyes as black as coal.  I asked it if it knew what had happened…but the plush toy with matted fur said nothing and just looked at me.  I shrugged it off and continued down the riverbank looking for answers.  Soon I came to another toy and posed the same question to it.

I asked, “Do you know what happened here?”  The small plastic monkey just laughed and told me to keep walking.  What I was seeking was just ahead.  He then nonchalantly rolled over on his side with this bemused look on his face.  At least that was something to go on and I continued walking not knowing what to look for but trusted I would recognize it when I saw it.  Before long I came to another toy and thought it might know what had happened, but first I had to do a little bit of work.

Poking out of the driftwood was this doll head and at first I thought that this was all that was left of this unfortunate toy.  I began to walk away when the head spoke to me and said that if I would help it out…in thanks it would help me too.  It took a bit of doing, but I was able to move the branches and small logs that were covering it and soon the complete doll saw the light of day again.

The doll was water-logged and dirty and I noticed that one of its arms was broken.  After recovering for a moment, the doll said the reason the beach was black had to do with the hand of man.  If I kept walking east that this would become clearer.  I thanked the doll and left it where I found it and moved on.  Soon I would find other evidence that would support what the doll told me.

About ten minutes later I came upon this old rubber glove and figured I was getting nearer to the “hand of man”.  As I continued down the river’s edge  I began to find bits and pieces of discarded machinery along the way.  The first find was an old generator and this is how I found it in the sand.

Near it was another buried machine that was being washed over by the waves of the Ohio River.  I took this photograph and kept walking.

I figured I was getting nearer my quest when I saw this monstrous truck with immense tires  parked in the coal dust, wood chips, and mud.   Was this vehicle somehow involved with the coal?

The truck was still functional and I surmised that its operator was probably near by.  It didn’t take me long to locate him.  He was taking a break and having a meal in a section of the park that had experienced a fire a few months a go.  I decided to approach him and ask about the coal.

With one jaundiced eye, the truck driver looked me over and took another bite from whatever he was eating.  He asked me what I wanted and I posed my coal question to him.  The driver admitted that he indeed had played a hand in this environmental destruction, but wasn’t willing to take full responsibility.  He said it was part of the cost of keeping warm in the winter and cool in the summer and that it provided much-needed jobs during these economic hard times.  He further added that if I truly was looking for someone to blame I didn’t need to go any farther than the person I saw staring back at me in a nearby pool of still water.  Of course, what I saw was my own reflection and I understood the truck driver’s point of view.  I left the driver to his meal and started for home.  I resolved then and there that I could at least do the little things to reduce my own demands for energy.  I would start by looking around my house for ways to save electricity.  Now where are those funny shaped light bulbs?

The sun is shining and it’s a brand new year and because it’s also 60 degrees out today…you might not recognize that it is also supposed to be  winter here at the Falls of the Ohio!  I’m sure it will come, but for now we have followed our wettest year ever with a very warm beginning for 2012.  I’m walking the banks of the Ohio River on the Indiana side across from my home in Louisville, Kentucky.  This new year marks the ninth year I have been engaged by this project which has meandered as the river has.  I’m using the material culture that washes up in the park to make my odd form of public art.  I’m hoping to capture something about the spirit of the times in which we live within the context of this very special place which is important both to the history of life and my country’s history.

Last year ended with more high water which deposited even more debris into the park.  One would think that if you had experienced as much rain and flooding as we did that there would be little left to wash into the river.  You might assume that all the small streams and creeks and all the water ways that feed into the river would be flushed out and that the river would eventually flow cleanly…or as clean as it can after passing through our urban landscape.  Unfortunately, you would be wrong and I have the pictures to prove it.

I’m always on the look out for wildlife and birds in particular.  On this day, even the year round avian residents are hard to find.  Everything about this day was very still. The most noteworthy bird I came across was this rubber duck which is somewhat fitting since I ended last year with a collection of rubber duckies that I have found out here over the years. This holiday duck is just the latest to enter my collection.  Oddly, when I looked at this day’s images on my home computer, I discovered that many of my finds were also “yellow” in color hence the partial title of this post.  Here are a few of my other finds from this day.

How long do you think it will take before people won’t recognize what this is?  I came across this toy telephone handset among the wood chips. I guess you can view this as the original cordless telephone.  I think nature is calling.

This bright plastic train is missing its opposite half which washed away with the river.  It was sitting at the water’s edge on gravel deposited by the last ice age.

I even found SpongeBob out here, but what he’s doing looking like one of the queen’s guards, I haven’t the slightest idea?  I saluted back and dropped him into my collecting bag.

Although this isn’t some ancient ivory carving of a mammoth…I did pick this pachyderm up and he snuggled next to SpongeBob.

I’m not sure whether a child or the family dog chewed this plastic horse up, but it was missing part of its leg and had other teeth marks on it as well.  This is not the only horse I found out at the Falls today.  This following piece was much bigger.

It’s not yellow, but it’s a horse of some kind.  I imagine that this is a toy marketed to girls who would enjoy combing the artificial hair on its flowing mane and tail.  Frankly, it could use a good brushing because there were all kinds of burs and seeds tangled in it.  It might be interesting to find out what kinds of plants are ensnared here and I thought about planting the mane somewhere.  And now, another change of pace featuring horse power of a different sort.

I don’t pick up everything I come across otherwise I would need more than the single collecting bag that I bring out here.  Frequently, just taking a picture of a found object is good enough.  Here is a plastic Mustang car mixed in with the driftwood.  As I’m walking I’m also picking up Styrofoam, sticks, nuts, and whatever strikes my fancy.  And, as is my habit…I try to make something from what I’ve collected and photographed out here before I head for home.  Here is the first figure of the new year constructed from junk I found on this adventure.

I made this small figure in the western most section of the park.  The yellow earrings are actually fishing lures.  I came across these two lead jigs with the bright yellow feathers that were tied in tandem and fished on the same line.  The red-head gear is a fabric and Styrofoam flower that’s falling apart.  The necklace is a plastic heart-shaped locket.

While I was making this piece…I was discovered by three boys who live in the nearby town of Clarksville.  They were having an adventure of their own on this beautiful day.  The boys were curious about what I was doing and periodically they would come closer for a peek.  Apparently, what I was doing didn’t sit well for whatever reason with one of the boys who then started to call me names!  ”Hey mister…your’e a freak!”  He called me a “freak” several times before running away.  Later, his two friends came by and apologized for him and we had a good conversation about calling people names.  I even reminded one of the boys of his social studies teacher and I’m guessing that’s somebody he has respect for?  Since the day was getting long, I decided it was time to head home.  I left my little figure with the feather earrings near the spot where I last saw the boys and perhaps they will find it.  Maybe it will give them the idea that it can be more fun to be creative than destructive.  That is always my hope.  Have a great year out there!

One last post before all of 2011′s sand runs through the hour-glass!  Here are a few of the many rubber duckies that I have come across at the Falls of the Ohio over the years.  I thought it would be a fun way to end the year. If you would like to see more ducky images…I’ve posted a new collection, “Kentucky Lucky Ducky Collection” which can be found in my Pages section.  Have a Happy New Year and may 2012 be kind to all!

The holiday season is upon us and I’m here at the Falls of the Ohio to renew one of my Christmas traditions.  For many years, I have been creating and sending out card images from stuff I’ve made or found washed up here.  This post documents what I came up with on this particular visit along the Ohio River.  Friends and family tell me they enjoy receiving these admittedly unusual cards.

To continue the story a bit from my last post, I came across some evidence that my friend Steve the Arrowhead Man had visited this area before me.  I came across this site where he sat on a log and chipped away rock from its matrix to reveal the projectile point that he sees within it.  The wind has blown away his foot prints.  Talking with Steve, he is an individual who believes that “all hell is about to break loose” and he views man’s poor treatment of the environment as the reason this crisis will occur.  To him, it might not happen today or tomorrow, but the road before us is clear to him and it is not a pretty picture.  During my last conversation with Steve he urged me to obtain a book on edible wild plants and study it.  I know that Steve has been periodically homeless and has tried living off the land.  I’ll admit that during my more pessimistic moods…that I agree with him.  However, I come out to the river to appreciate the natural world and exercise my creative muscles.  This usually puts me in a better frame of mind.

Since my last visit the river level has dropped exposing more of its sandy shoreline.  The aluminum boat that was out here is gone and I wondered if Steve was able to salvage it or if the authorities contacted its owner based on the registration numbers along its side?  As I walk along the bank, I’m keeping my eyes open for whatever is new that has washed ashore.  As usual I find toys like this miniature dinosaur which I scooped up into my collecting bag.  There’s an animated holiday special that airs on television each year that has been a favorite of mine since I was a child.  I know I’m revealing a lot here by admitting that I’m a fan of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”!  There is one setting within this Christmas classic that always gets me.  It’s the Island of Misfit Toys where irregular play things (like a train with square wheels and a Charlie in the Box) are sent into “exile” on this island and “exist” with the hope that Santa Claus will eventually rescue them and present them to kids who will love them.  Ah, pathetic fallacy strikes again. The poignancy of that image has loomed large in my imagination ever since I first saw it.  At times I feel that the Falls of the Ohio State  Park is that island and that the lost and misfit toys arrive here via the river.  Here are a few other toys I found on this particular day.

Here is the remains of a remote control car that was deposited upon the driftwood.  I wonder why it found itself in the river?

I came across this washed-up plush figure with a big nose and mustache.  I feel I “know” this character, but can’t place him at the moment.  Lying less that ten feet away from him was this very recognizable and classic character.  I wonder if they  traveled together?

I turned this Winnie the Pooh plush figure over and removed the burrs that were attached to it and then brushed some of the wet sand off of it.  Who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh and what is he doing in the river?  He is far away from the Hundred Acre Woods.  I carried Pooh and the “mustache man” with me as I gathered the other items I found (including a large chunk of Styrofoam and parts of a garden hose) and proceeded to make my next Falls creation.

Here is version #1 of the Styro-Snowman.  He’s a bit larger than most of the figures I have made out here.  I used a plastic coffee container for a hat, but wasn’t satisfied with it.  I wish I could have found different head-gear, but this is what that day presented to me.  I posed my two little outcast friends at his base and snapped this image.  This was a relatively warm and super bright day as you can see by the strong cast shadows.

This is version #2 minus the coffee container.  The eyes are the blackened remains of nuts from the buckeye tree.  I used other buckeyes and a few walnuts for the “buttons”.  The remaining elements are plastic fragments and driftwood.  Here is another detail.

I also found a length of yellow nylon rope which I employed as a belt.  I tucked the Pooh figure under it as well as a plastic booze bottle to add that extra element of holiday cheer.

As the day was moving along and since I was needed elsewhere…I left this figure at this location, but added one more element.

I added this message in the sand and walked away.  Inside my camera were enough images that I later printed for my holiday cards.  Along the walk back I noticed this white chair near the top of a tree.

This image is another reminder of how high the river can get during one of its flood stages.  The chair was deposited here during last Spring’s high water, but is especially visible now because the leaves have dropped.  I’m always amazed at how variable this relatively small place can be.  I hope everyone out there in the wider world has a great holiday season and I will end with one more message in the sand.

As expected we set a new yearly rain total record and we still have time left in 2011.  At the moment, we have had 66 inches of rain breaking the old mark by two inches.  I waited for the river to go down a bit before returning to the Falls of the Ohio.  The water was still high which restricted how far I could go.  One very noticeable difference from my last visit was this lost boat.  The high water we did receive loosened it from its mooring up river and it showed up here.  I wonder if someone will attempt to salvage it?

I am always hopeful that I will find lots of cool stuff and this is what I came up with on this trip.  I’ve started collecting the plastic toy wheels that come off toy trucks and cars.  I don’t know what I will eventually do with them, but then again that’s part of the fun!  Here’s a closer image of the blue plastic parachutist in the spot where he landed.

This other figure in the blue coat is my friend Steve the Arrowhead Man.  I’ve nicknamed him this because he likes to knap or chip projectile points from the local rock as the Indigenous people once did.  For him it is a primeval aesthetic.  Steve was the only person I saw on this very cold, but sunny day.  Steve was hunting for rock, but was having no luck because the river was still too high.  I asked how life was treating him and he said that things were a little better for him.  He now has permission to be in the park to practice his craft.  Steve did tell me he once received a ticket for “littering” because someone found a small pile of rock chips he made during the creation of an arrowhead.  We both had a good laugh about that considering his “waste” rock is far less offensive than the daily barrage of plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups that other visitors have strewn about the park.  The new administration at the park has actually embraced people like Steve and potentially me too.  The two of us are living interpreters of the Falls of the Ohio State Park.  For so long, it felt like the only interesting events occurred in this place two hundred or more years a go.  The Falls, however, is a living site and should be treated as such.  This blog is a sampling of the reality that exits in the park at the present moment.  No doubt two hundred years from now people will find a completely different set of circumstances and folks might be curious about us…or not?

This is the figure I made with found materials on this day.  I walked as far east as I could in the park before the river and deposited driftwood blocked the way.  Along my walk, I came across a discarded life vest and I appropriated it for this figure.  I also found the Styrofoam here and there and carried it under my arms. The distinctive black eyes are old nuts from the buckeye tree. The nose is the spray nozzle from a plastic bottle.  A friend told me the other day that he prefers the animal sculptures I make over the “human presences” I create from these poor materials.  I had to agree, but told him that my figures do contain a certain amount of realism to them because they reflect so well the absurdity of the human condition and our relationship to the planet.

With his thin smile I left this figure waving goodbye and turned around for home.  It was time because I was feeling cold and my left knee was aching.  One of the parting remarks that Steve said to me was that he was considering trying to save the aluminum boat we saw earlier.  I wonder if he tried?  I’ll ask him next time I see him.

The Ohio River continues to rise and as this year draws to a close…it will go down as either our wettest ever or close to the top.  At the time of this writing,  we are more than twenty inches above normal rainfall.  During a usual year, we can expect a bit more than forty inches of precipitation and we are past the sixty inches mark with a forecast calling for even more heavy downpours.  I believe we set the old mark in 2004 for most rain in our Kentuckiana area.  Okay, so all this is a bit boring I admit, however, it sets the stage for the day and this adventure at the Falls of the Ohio.

Because the river was rising, the normal shoreline at the Falls was underwater which in turn forced me to higher ground.  That means today’s adventure took place on the large pile of driftwood that formed during last spring’s flooding.  The large wooden mound is interlaced with all kinds of debris that floated in with the bloated river which acts as an attraction for scavengers such as myself and an acquaintance I came across today who goes by the nickname “Pig Boy”.  Yes, he bears some resemblance to a pig, but as he told me…he came by this unflattering handle because he enjoys getting dirty especially by the river.  ”Piggie” and I have this in common and so we get along famously.  It had been a while since I saw him last and I asked if anything was new?  That’s when he related to me a recent nightmare he experienced and as he spoke the following images came to my mind and through the miracle of digital means I present to it to you for your perusal. I began to hear bits of the old “Twilight Zone” theme in my brain.

As the dream begins, Pig Boy found himself on the very driftwood mountain we were standing upon.  He was there because over the months this mound shifts and falls under its own weight and decomposition revealing new “treasures” originally captured by the river.  As Pig Boy explained it…he was just in his own head space checking out the variety of packaging that was intermixed with all the wood.  That’s when the most curious thing happened when he looked up.

All kinds of plastic bottles and containers were emerging from the driftwood pile and moving towards him as if he were a plastic magnet.  Pig Boy was transfixed and unable to move as this plastic wave began to close in on him.

More and more plastic kept coming towards him and before long it started to build up around his body which made moving or running away even harder.

Soon the bottles reached his waist and were piling up even more!  Not all of these bottles were empty and some of them contained river water and the backwash of old soft drinks and who knows what else? By this time in Piggie’s dream he was truly getting alarmed and he remembers this voice telling him that he needed to get out of there!

Before all these plastic bottles could completely overwhelm him… Pig Boy remembers letting out a scream because he was just so frightened.  The feeling  of helplessness was upon him and he forced himself to wake up which he did in a cold sweat.  He recalls the immense feeling of relief when he realized that this had all been a bad dream.  I could feel the claustrophobic sense of being engulfed by all this plastic as my friend relayed his story to me and I became scared as well.

And so I asked my friend after such a bad dream…what was he doing back here?  He replied that he didn’t have a good answer and that he is compelled to come out here for the thrill of discovery or something like that.  Pig Boy can’t help himself.  Every once in a while, you can actually find something useful out here that can be recycled in some way and besides it’s nice to be out in nature.  After a few more minutes and various pleasantries…we parted wishing the other well and happy hunting.  I stood there on the driftwood by myself and looked up at the river which to my imagination seemed higher in the short amount of time I had been out there.  My mind then turned to something I had read about how our oceans are now becoming increasingly filled with plastic garbage that coagulates into large masses and probably will never go away.  That thought was in turn interrupted by a drop of rain that fell on my cheek and I decided it was time to go home too.  I’ll bet we establish that new rainfall record before the end of the year.  Stay dry everybody.

I was taken a bit off guard on this visit to the Falls of the Ohio by a rising Ohio River.  While we have not received much precipitation recently, the same can’t be said for the parts of the Ohio River Valley north of here.  When I showed up on this visit much of the accessible riverbank was already underwater.  Here at the Falls the river level is regulated by a system of tainter gates and dams that helps ensure a steady water level for commercial barge traffic at the McAlpin Locks.  It is a curious notion to think how much of this environment is managed for the benefit of man.  Water is also released under these gates to help manage flooding along the length of the river and the land it passes through.

While walking the receding shoreline, I came across the remains of the larger recent figure I had set up in the tall grass.  The river had already captured and changed it.  I did find some new materials to make something with and this is the figure that resulted.  I have no doubt that it too is now gone.  I may find parts of it again once the river recedes.

He’s not the most attractive figure to say the least, but he’s what I had to work with on this day.  At first, I positioned him by some other objects that had washed into here during the spring floods.  As is my habit, I also moved him around to other locations that increasingly were being encroached upon by the rising river which was sending wave after wave crashing against the sandy beach.  Here are a few images of where I eventually left this figure to its fate.

The sky had this interesting quality to it.  Although it was still warm, the light conditions evoked a colder landscape.  I nearly expected to see a flock of Sandhill Cranes to pass by high above me in their characteristic “V-shaped flight pattern.  Since the day was proving to be less promising than anticipated…I decided to cut my day here short and move on to other concerns.  I left my latest figure on the log where it waved its good byes to the city on the opposite bank of the river.

All and all it was a rather melancholy day.  There are times I think I’m going to  be able to do more than I actually accomplish, but on this day the river was calling the tune.  I wonder how high the river will eventually get?

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!

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!

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!