The April Fools

I thought my piece was finished and the gallery show is over for a year, but there was one piece of flat Jell-O left and now I know why. Those divinely silly Radar Angels made my night legendary.

Indi set me up right in the main hall with my table of shirts and all of my Jell-O that I had been selling at the Market last season. I had shirts from previous years too (thanks Joanie), and hung my wings on the wall, had my foot on a pillow and Jell-O in my hair, and I joked many times that I felt like a queen. Just an ordinary queen, though.

For a year they planned a skit based on *Jell-O Queen for a Day* and put four lame candidates on stage last night. One was Newt's wife, quite whiny, one was a pushy Sarah Palin in a red suit, who kept trying to monopolize the mike. The third sang a sweet song on the ukulele but still couldn't get any votes, and the fourth was a wonderfully-made-up version of the Deen diabetes character (barely recognizable as Larry), who swore she lost weight on a deep-fried Jell-O diet. (I expect to see that particular item on next year's Tacky Food table, if I have to make it myself!)

I was sitting right in front with my poor foot on a pillow, and I remember thinking it a little odd that Angela got a chair and sat right next to me. No one ever gets a chair, but as it happens 8-months pregnant Julie got to sit too, so it wasn't that odd. Then as the skit went on, and we voted with our uptwinkles in a perfectly entwined nod to the Occupy theme, I said to Angela, "They need more candidates!"

None of the four got many uptwinkles, mostly down, though plenty of laughs. Finally the lovely assistant and the guy on piano (aka Rico Suave) announced that there was no clear winner. "No clear winner!" (obvious Jell-O reference.)

Well, you have figured out the tale already: they crowned ME! For a year they kept the fabulous secret and brought me the royal crutches and a box of tissues and put me on stage in a throne with a cape, scepter, and bouquet of Jell-O boxes, and I babbled some sort of a speech in my giggly confusion. I didn't stop grinning for an hour at least.

They proceeded to sing a special song, (Time Warp) and I got to sing along, fulfilling a lifelong dream to actually be one of the performing Angels, something I'm always too chicken to do. They made me sit there while everyone took pictures, many pictures, and posed with me. The actual Slug Queen even bowed to me! This was a moment supreme and I am still suffused with pleasure as I sit here at five in the morning, ready for my April Fools Day.

I'm only Jell-O Queen for a Day, mind you, but I take this to mean an entire 24 hours and what better day to bask in my glory than this. Sunday after the show is always a soft entry back into what passes for a normal life in my part of the world, as the creative year is launched and as we have all now blinked and the Show is over for another 365 or so days.

I've said before how essential Jell-O Art is to my self-concept as an artist, how seriously I take the free self-expression it has opened for me. I sincerely doubt I would even be a real capital-A Artist without it. Somehow though I never expected that it would bring this much satisfaction as a person in a community. I'm such a hermit and iconoclast that I seldom feel an integral part of a group, and tend to hang on the fringes wishing. I think this has changed now that I am in my sixties.

This level of friendship and honor is a wonderful, dreamy and for the moment, very tangible gift. I want to keep repeating "I'm not worthy" but I'm dropping that poor-me attitude every time I hear it come out of my brain. Apparently I am. I respect and admire the Angels and associated Angels in training so much, that if they think I am royalty, well, I would be quite foolish to argue. In fact, that would be insulting. And now I have the crown, scepter, and bouquet for the Jell-O Art Museum, a slew of photos on Facebook, and a roomful of people as witnesses.

Twenty-four years of Jell-O Art dedication is a symbol of how I've lived my life, trying hard to be authentic, loyal, dependable, and giving. My subjects have seen me, and they have crowned me. Once my day is over I will have to get back to the mundane work of being an ordinary hero, but for one glorious night I sat in a throne and felt so humble and deserving that my brain didn't have a poor-me thought in it's recesses. I was so proud. I was so ecstatic. My heart was so full, it was flying around the room spreading glitter and flakes of gelatin everywhere.

So I will make one more page for my book today, and luxuriate in the peak life experience of 2012. Is it the end? Did I Occupy my soul?

I think it is the beginning. I think I can put self-deprecation aside and keep that moment on stage in the front of my mind. Yes, there was a Jell-O Queen for the blink of an eye, and I was her. She! Me!

There is certainly no bigger honor, no more appropriate designation. And now we have 365 days to figure out a way to top this. I'll be testing recipes for deep-fried Jell-O if anyone wants a taste.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Long live gelatinous glory! Long live Jell-O Art! Long live the Jell-O Art Show! Maybe tomorrow I will be able to sleep.