Here is an inadequate picture of my Jell-O Art. The base is about a foot square and the leaves extend out in all directions, making the thing about the size of a two foot cube.
It's a book, a book about my life as a Jell-O artist. The first page is titled Jell-O Art and gives sort of an introduction, and the following pages are about the Radar Angels, the creative process, metamorphosis, and other things that are significant to my artistic experience.
A few of the pages are printed, which as far as I know is a new technique to our group. I just did them with existing screens since making new screens is still very difficult with my broken foot. The fractal one hangs off the back and is drooping a bit much, but we'll see how it curls, since random effects are usually fine. The tree page needs something more behind it but I need to be finished with piece. I drew and collaged a bird on it, and since customers are constantly telling me that tree is the Tree of Life that is what it represents. I seldom argue with my customers. If I were ambitious and had more time I would probably add more creatures to it. I might just do that because I'm not quite satisfied with it the way it is. I tried making one more leaf to put behind it with a collaged fish on it, but it just didn't fit right.
I printed the word Imagine as well and wanted to print a few more of my hat images, such as fear less and YES and those would be great, but the screens were hard to find and I ran out of shop time. I probably could manage doing those without an assistant but now it is wet outside and although I just crutched my way out there to get something I needed, it seems like too much effort to go out there again for such small details to add to what is essentially a finished piece.
I know I have a tendency to amass too many images and as you can see from the picture there are many layers and this will be a piece you really will have to study from all sides to fully experience. The photograph presents a sad mishmash of what is an elegant and intensely meaningful piece. The greatest piece of Jell-O Art ever made! I wish.
The rest of the pages are hand lettered with markers and drawing pens and I hope the colors don't turn out to be fugitive. This piece might have to be stored in a box for long-term life. I poured some clear gelatin into the bottom of the box, which is just a plexiglas picture frame I found in a drawer, so the piece might transmit light from below for an interesting effect. I took some flowers off of last year's dress (intending someday to restore it to the simplicity of Celeste's original conception) and put them in there, added a flower and a shell from my current retail stock, and some grass from another part of last year's piece.
I asked Maude Kerns management if I could display and (hopefully) sell my retail Jell-O Art at the show this year along with the t-shirts. It hasn't been the case that any individual's art has been for sale during the show, so it might not even work, but my medical bills are frightening and I don't know when I will have a regular income again. June I guess.
I researched physical therapy for this kind of break (calcaneus and part of the ankle) and it turns out that although I will be able to put weight on my foot after twelve weeks of rest, that doesn't mean that I will be able to walk. I'll still need crutches and eventually a cane and will have to rebuild the muscles of my leg and convince my brain that it is safe to put the foot down and use it. That means another month or two of hard going. Since my main income is from the grueling 12-hour day of Saturday Market and the screenprinting I do standing up, I'm not going to be fully back to work for a really long time. So now's your chance to collect a little piece of some really unique Eugene history, the living, breathing, quarter-decade old Jell-O Art Show, and to support a local artist who needs your cash.
I will of course gladly accept your admiration if you don't want to own a collector's item or a fairly useless but gorgeous piece of gelatin made permanent. I understand living simply and not accumulating stuff. I do hope you take a good look at my piece though. I'd be glad to talk technique and give tips to other artists who want to try the dried stuff. It's much more simple than it looks.
Even if it did take me twenty-five years to make it. See you at the show! Don't blink and miss it!
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