It's painful that I haven't posted in a year and never reviewed last year's show, but here's a video and the event page from Facebook for you. We are definitely working hard on jelling and this year will be even better than last if such a thing is even possible. If you can't go to FB, the video should be on YouTube along with some other vintage Radar Angels video that will be sure to waste a few hours of your precious time, but if you don't laugh I would be amazed. Forgive my embarrasment, but looking ridiculous online is something I am not all the way used to, so will keep practicing. I hear it gets easier every time, and this will only be my 7th performance since being crowned in 2012, so I can look forward to still growing into my role for at least another thirty years.
One new thing I have committed to is an Ask the Queen session at MKAC on the Saturday before the show, from probably 2-4 pm. I'll bring samples of my work, some pieces in progress, and show people how I do it, and will have pounds of gelatin for sale for $10 if you need some. I think it will certainly be free, and the goal is to connect the community, plus get people excited about the things they might do in that last week of March. The show is March 30th, and the "workshop" will be March 23rd. RadarActive will help me, and we'll talk about both jiggly Jell-O and other kinds, and will no doubt reveal all of our secrets and then some. Maybe you'll find out why we use Jell-O names on our pieces instead of our real ones. Failure is an option! Don't wait until then to start playing, but if you get Knox-blocked, maybe we can help.
Our theme this year is Jellojenesis, which is kind of meant to be about the beginning of all things art in Eugene. We thought we'd start with Maude Kerns herself, to whom we are so indebted for modelling how to be a woman in art even though it was way harder back when she and Gertrude Bass Warner were doing it. We want to show how the art community in Eugene springs from the same roots and is so intertwined and codependent (in a good way...) that most of us couldn't extricate ourselves if we tried. Jell-O Art Show, Saturday Market, Art in the Vineyard, Oregon Country Fair, and Holiday Market are only the biggest of the art things happening, and if you've been paying attention, you see that the city Cultural Services programs and the new-ish Art City Group are doing amazing things and really making Eugene sing and dance on the regular. Eugene Celebration is kind of re-created with Sunday Streets and the EUGFUN Parade, and of course we never ceased electing Slug Queens and we always have the raining Slug Queen give a benediction to our Jell-O Art Show. This year's Queen, Queen Incognita (probably has more qualifiers in her name, I expect) will hopefully give us some hopeful hopefulness in her specialty area, climate change, which is also number one on my list of things to do as much about as possible right now. (Side note, you can go see an interview with me here, that doesn't even mention Jell-O, but is still something to waste a little time with in that good way.)
So, I have to go now, as I got a grant from the Lane County History Museum to support my work of archiving 50 years of the Saturday Market history, and my living room will be filled with that until I get a handle on it, and there is quite literally NO ROOM FOR JELL-O! I have handed off the set-making this year to an eminently qualified younger Angel, Ren, who will delight us all with his brilliant (pun-intended) integration of gelatin, light and space, and make us look good on stage, but I still have lots of Jell-O work to do like making sense of our nascent script and practicing some songs and so on. But I will try to post more, though in the meantime, get a friend to let you look at their FB if you are not on it, because Michael Hall is posting tons of Radar Angel photos on this page and there's a lot of gloriosity on there. You might want to think about a costume for the show this year, too. I have to wear quite a few myself and it's one of my favorite parts.
I will leave you with just this one photo, in honor of someone I've been thinking about as I find him repeatedly in the archives. He always dressed up and attended the Jell-O Art Show, as we launch the local Art year around April Fools Day, and he connected all of our groups in a very powerful way and we miss him. Gil Harrison, thank you for all that you have done for us. He's quite subdued here compared to Sue and Judy, but still, always had such style.
