The Brown-winged Robin and Other Birds

Since my last visit to the Falls of the Ohio State Park the willow fuzz has peaked.  Cottony drifts have gathered in places that offer some protection from even the slightest breeze.  The way the light shines on this gossamer surface is magical!  Before venturing into today’s avian adventure…a personal blogging milestone announcement as this is officially post number 300!  I hear the champagne corks popping already.  I had little in the way of expectations when I started this Riverblog, but I have been happy with this medium for describing my project.  In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if blogging would hold my interest, but it has.  I have also enjoyed the wide community that is out there and I thank everyone that has stopped by or left a comment.  As regular visitors know…I’m a big bird watching fan and I enjoy the many challenges that this hobby presents me.  A once in a lifetime experience can begin with a quick flash of the wings that may last just seconds.  It causes me to be acutely present in the moment.  Venturing down to the river I see the resident flock of Black Vultures has returned for another season.  I photographed this wary pair looking for dead fish or anything else edible.

The foreground in this image is willow fluff covering the sand.  I find the two vulture species that hang out at the Falls to be really interesting birds and I have posted on them many times before.  There are more furtive species out here as well and I had the good luck to stumble upon a small mixed flock of warbler species.  Among this group were several Magnolia Warblers and I have a few images of them.  I love their coloring with their black streaks on their bright yellow breasts.  Magnolia Warbler is a misnomer since they don’t seem to favor that tree in my experience.  I found these warblers to be very tolerant of my presence and I was able to follow them as they moved from one willow tree to another in their search for small insects.

Warblers are tiny always on the go creatures and their many species are a highlight of the spring migration.  Many of the warbler species I see are passing through our area to points mostly north of here.  I came across another seldom seen bird that I hope you will enjoy.  It’s called the Brown-winged Robin and it too is traveling through the heartland.  I have a series of this bird too beginning with a specimen I found wading through the willow fuzz.  Is this pre-nesting behavior?

Here are a few more shots of this rare bird in the environment at the Falls of the Ohio.  The brown wings are diagnostic as is the bright red beak.

There are many more bird species both real and imagined that I look forward to presenting in future posts!  I hope to continue to share with you the great variety of life that I find in this relatively small place as it reveals itself to me.  One other announcement for folks in my immediate area.  I will be presenting my project at the Pecha Kucha event at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky the evening of June 5.  This will be an outdoor event and coincides with the transit of Venus occurring on that night.  Essentially, this slide show presentation form I believe began in architectural circles and speakers have 20 slides at 20 seconds a piece to present a topic.  It goes by fast so you need to be pithy which can be a challenge! If you are interested in more information just click on my Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest link in my blogroll.  I hope to see some of you out there and thanks again to all who have checked out the Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog over the years!  Now for more willow fuzz!

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Studio 2012, A New Beginning

On an absolutely beautiful day I recorded these images of my latest found materials sculpture made at the Falls of the Ohio.  The morning started briskly, but warmed up enough that I felt comfortable taking my jacket off!  Around here, we were wondering if winter would ever arrive and now that it’s late February…we are beginning to have our doubts.  Without question, this has been the warmest winter I can recall around here.  At first, I had the park to myself and I began my day scrounging the river bank for materials.  After a couple of hours, I had enough river polished polystyrene assembled at one area that my latest outdoor studio was born.  As long as the river doesn’t swamp this spot anytime soon…I should have enough materials to keep me busy for a while.  Here is my first image of my latest Falls of the Ohio atelier.

It’s mostly Styrofoam chunks in various sizes, but you can see other stuff as well.  I found an interesting sign written in black marker that looks to be quoting the price of various scrap metals.  The sign is so crudely made that I wondered if some backyard entrepreneur was collecting aluminum and copper for later resale to a salvage yard?  That makes it a true sign of the times as metal of all varieties becomes increasingly valuable.  I also have a section of fire hose I salvaged.  It’s canvas-covered rubber and it’s just the right kind of thing that one of my stone carving friends could use.  When a particularly heavy piece of stone is moved, pieces of fire hose are used to protect both the stone and the ropes from abrasion as the stone is lifted by crane.  I found an especially long length of fire hose after the big driftwood fire of the early summer.  That fire must have caught the fire fighters by surprise because I can’t imagine why such a large length of perfectly good hose would be cut and abandoned?  I also found a Styrofoam life ring and various odds and ends I may use when I make my own brand of sculpture.  The following are images that show the progression of this day’s figure as it came into being.  First, I started with a large section of lightweight material that I heard one old-timer call fiberglass?  I’m not sure that it’s made of that, but it definitely is not polystyrene.  I hammered some legs into it with a board and set it upright.  I’ll let a few of the photos speak for themselves as the figure comes together.

The head is made of various found plastic fragments.  The head crest is composed of a half of a frisbee and the hard bristles of a large push broom.  The ears are the bottoms of aluminum cans which suggest ear spools.  Here is a detail of the head.

He’s a handsome guy in a Mayan sort of way isn’t he?  After assembly, I reposed the figure at different places near my studio and ran into some new friends.  This is Annie and James who were at the Falls enjoying a little photography of their own.  They had seen my work out here before and now they have a name and face to go with the artist.

After a nice visit with the couple, I reposed my piece to face the river and took these parting images while soaking up all the fresh air and light.

I’ll be curious to see how this figure survives until my next visit.  Should he disappear…I’m not too worried.  I have more materials at my outdoor studio and more arriving daily including a couple of huge Styrofoam chunks too heavy to move! Here’s one photo of what must have been a section of a boat dock.  See you next time around from the Falls of the Ohio.

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Taller Than a Refrigerator

Since know one has asked me yet…”Why are you using that nasty Styrofoam to make your art?’…I thought I might say a few words and use this work from early February of this year.  The above image shows an especially large hunk of polystyrene about to be beached by the waves of the Ohio River.  Do you think the river, in its way is trying to tell us something?  Fresh water is such a precious resource that we should not take even what seems an abundant supply for granted.  I hauled this Styrofoam onto the beach which wasn’t easy since it was wet, very cold, and water-logged.  For years, my experiences in this park have been marred by the debris that washes up here from points north.  I had to wait about two weeks before I could do anything with this “prize”.

Here’s a detail of the completed figure.  I augmented the large piece with a smaller chunk that could serve as the head.  Fishing bobbers, parts of shoes, driftwood, assorted plastic, and a lost life vest are the materials in this work.  Because I consider what I do as a collaboration with nature, I respect the forms the river gives me by not carving or altering them to any great extant.  I always marvel at how the river’s processes shape the Styrofoam, in ways that I couldn’t easily replicate.  This figure is able to stand because one of its arms is hooked around a tree.

Here are front and back views of the “Refrigerator Man”, so named because of where I sited this figure.  The refrigerator washed up a couple years ago…at least someone bothered to remove the door.  The thing about polystyrene is that although it is organic by definition (think of the carbon rings) it doesn’t occur without our help.  The resins used to make this material are extracted from petroleum…which itself is an extract of life.  Polystyrene has this out-of-sync quality to it that I feel increasingly characterizes us and our relationship to the world that sustains us.  You wonder how it is even economically feasible to make this material from what also seems a limited resource?  On this day, the river was icy and especially cold.  My nose ran constantly and my toes were getting numb.

About a week later, I went back to “Refrigerator Man” to see how he was faring.   As you can see…not too good.  Some person or persons tied him up to a tree using a yellow, nylon rope and I’m guessing used him for target practice and beheaded him.  What happens to my projects is usually interesting .  In their own way, they become little experiments in human behavior.  I did untie “Refrigerator Man” and stashed his body away to be recycled into another art project for future use.

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