Getting Close to Theme Time

I was a little over-excited when I wrote the last post. I stay in my bubble too much and when I go out and see people doing big things that scare me, I get far too anxious and forget the big picture. No one is ever out to get me and in fact has barely noticed me, so it's really not about me, those big things. I can have a little voice. Mostly I just need to find ways to work around the big things and use them as fuel for my art and passions, which is kind of what I was doing.

The Radar Angels are meeting next week to talk theme and get started on planning the performance. It's my job as Queen to remind them that it is first the Jell-O Art Show, which is central to the event and can't be overlooked as we get so excited about the performance. We tend to veer wildly off any set course as we develop the show, so I have to expect some chaos and not get too flustered by it. 

But getting together with a bunch of creative people is very juicy. I expect to laugh a lot and that very few of my ideas will go anywhere...but there will be plenty more opportunities to have more ideas. 

My fantasies have been all over the place about what will be current enough in April to still be funny, but won't be settled and out of mind by then. The developments downtown will really need to be a part of it somehow, but one thing we really try to do is find the good and beautiful in what we satirize, so it might be tricky. I have a fantasy about asking our Mayor Kitty to play herself (or someone else even) in our show. When she gave the Angels our award on the 4th of July, I completely missed the chance to get her to wear Jell-O, which I think she might enjoy. 

Obviously the 4th of July. Mayor on the right.

I was thinking of having our characters be Eugene stereotypes so we could tell some broad Eugene story without lampooning actual people. There are plenty of candidates for such stereotypes from the travelers to the millenials to the developers but above all we must be kind, so I was thinking that they might all say the same thing in different words. Really it does all boil down to "I love Eugene, and this is the way I love it." Everybody sees the nouns in a little different light, and works the verbs in sometimes wildly different actions. So this might be a solid base to start from. But I am really just exercising my own exploratory thinking here as in the three years I have been involved in working on the performance, I have been surprised at just about every meeting at how many and how creatively the ideas flow. True brainstorming happens where one idea turns into another and there is almost no such thing as a final result. 

The stage is set

The Jell-O Art Show itself is always a joy as new people and experienced people bring their sculptures and interactive pieces and interpretations of theme and just jell. The take a concept and Jell-O-ize it. True art ensues and true artists are born. I would be dismayed if no kids came with legos floating in pools of Berry Blue. I would be surprised if some of the regulars skipped the show. It's like the advent of spring to my artistic life, with just the right amount of silly amidst a lot of serious effort. 


I love getting the costumes and props together and look forward to the singing and whatever choreography we manage to fit on the stage. In last year's show we had some elements that were supremely hilarious and really the first rule is that we amuse ourselves, so if we forego something serious like Kesey Plaza and just do something purely joyful that will be fine. We don't really need to mourn anyone though a few Bowie songs might be so useful as illustrations. We rarely sing the original words, but we can do a lot with Under Pressure and Let's Dance without a lot of changing. Maybe we'll end up on the moon. Maybe we have to talk Harry Potter or some superhero. We may or may not interface the ideas from Jell-O with those more suited to Country Fair. 

We have a Slug Queen this year who is a regular member of our crew, so we might have to use him in some important way. We still have an Old Queen or two we could draw on, and of course my regal presence is required and available. I was thinking of some kind of battle of the Queens but since that is the opposite of our actual interactions, it might be funnier to change the battle paradigm completely to illustrate the challenges of cooperation instead. In simple terms, how do we all make a bowl of Jell-O? There isn't really one right way. That might be fertile metaphor territory. 

So watch this space, all of you who love the Jell-O Art Universe. I'll keep giving you hints about what we are doing and will definitely post the theme as soon as we choose one. If you have any ideas, we're looking for a phrase we haven't used, one that can be interpreted widely for all of the artists, one that conveys some of the joy of the event and the medium, and if it makes a pun or alludes to something mysterious, all the better.

You can't really have too many ideas. They all get stirred together and more emerge anyway, so don't fight it. If it isn't right it won't get wings, so don't be attached, but let your imagination run. Pleasure might follow.