The Jell-O Art season begins as soon as the year turns after the holiday season, and builds momentum up to the Jell-O Art Show, which we consider the first event of Spring around here. (It's going to be March 23rd, 2024.) It is generally a huge focus of my life, and can push every other thing out of the way. It can be pure fun, or a bigger challenge, but the main goal is to amuse the Jell-O artists and performers, and of course, the community, who are a loyal, local group who like to feel like they are in on a secret. And we like to keep it kind of a secret, the performance at least. The Show is a fundraiser for MKAC and definitely not a secret. Plan to attend! 5-8 pm, so you can still go somewhere to eat or dance. Or home to bed, whatever.
Mostly we keep secrets because the performance is somewhat improvisational up until almost the very end. We don't even wear our costumes to the dress rehearsal unless there are props to manage or we need to see if we can even move in whatever wacky thing we decided to wear. And it's extra fun to surprise the others. Last year Queen Elizabeth just wowed me, with Indi's sense of design and the perfection of her whole shtick. She's kind of my Lucille Ball, or maybe Carol Burnett. She makes me rise to the occasion and really let loose as much as I can for a decrepit old hermit with stage fright.
I rarely actually have stage fright anymore, because the trick of having a persona and a character to play greatly eases any anxiety about undue attention, and really, it's just the Jell-O Art Show, not some serious theatre drama that will make or break my career. It's not my career, and you can't break it, and I know how to make it, Jell-O that is.
I do take the making of the Jell-O completely seriously. For me it is the essence of myself as an artist, because it's not for making money, it's impossible to control as a medium, and it has taught me what artists know about self-expression. I've written about that a lot over the years, but in a nutshell, you dive in and swim, sometimes half-drowning and other times riding the waves. I love the opportunity for self-expression that is ephemeral and only as important as you make it.
So how I get started with my Jell-O, once the writing of the script and songs and meeting with the performers has begun, is that I wait for inspiration from my busy little brain and heart. I see what comes up, subject-wise, as we figure out the theme and set the tone. Sometimes I go to the thrift shop and find some irresistible prop to build my idea around or in.
The theme we came up with is The Good, The Bad, The Jell-O.
Originally we thought we might go Western because it is fun, but then we took out the "and" so the theme would seem more open to interpretation, as our gift to the artists. I mean, if someone can't go off from good and bad, they can pick one. Plenty of either to choose from. I'm not fond of duality, so I"m thinking of this as the ultimate in universality...it's neither, but all of everything at the same time. Expressed in Jell-O. So many cultural subjects to refer to...I just thought of that film that won all the Oscars last year. I didn't really like it that much, but I'm not big on either action or surrealism, or whatever they were trying to do in that film. But everyone seemed to think it was hot at the time.
I tried to watch the western with a similar name, but I got to about the middle when Clint was getting his skin back, and quit watching. Just not enough to work with for me, though it was tempting. I hope we have someone who can whistle well so we can use their recurring theme whistle at some point in the show. We always get seduced by whatever is in the current zeitgeist, and of course that is tons of fun. Sometimes it is even cathartic and surprising when it seems like the zeitgeist is listening to us. Like last year, when I put googly eyes on the creepy spy balloon, unaware that googly eyes were a theme in that award-winning film about Everything.
Anyway, enough about the performance, because it is barely in its infant stages and will go in many directions from where we think we are now. And I've been told more than once that it is more fun for us than our audience, but of course, that was not nice, fair, or true. If it hadn't been my brother saying it I might have really been hurt, but I know there are lots of people who just don't see the value of the Jell-O Art Show and never will. There are lots who do!
Or anyway, a few people. One fun thing is that we force the Slug Queen to give a Benediction, so we get to know them a little and they get to try to figure it all out too. The raining Queen, Queen Jubilee Hedonisto, admitted on Facey that she is already experimenting, so that is fun.
Last year we had some people down from the Portland Peculiarium who included an actual expert gelatin artist who made an exquisite gelatina with frogs and frog eggs and all kinds of cool flavors, which was eaten from the Tacky Food table, which reappeared for the first time post-pandemic. They even tried a Jellofest of their own in Ptown, which my son dutifully attended, but we have been doing ours for a much longer time so ours is better, no offense. It's our 35th! But it brought us a lot of attention from the Oregonian and an interview and all kinds of extra nonsense, which will likely not occur this year. It was thrilling, and more random things could occur!
One never knows. But anyway I told Queen Ju (not sure she has a nickname or what it would be...) that I would talk about techniques a little for beginning artists, so I'll just give a little bit so you don't have to scroll down for all of my informational posts amid the self-obsessed chatty ones.
Basically, if you are doing wet Jell-O and like to retain the jiggle, you want to decrease the water in the recipe, and the easiest technique is a mold, which can be anything that you can get the sculpture out of. Those wasteful blister packs are good, and those modern silicone molds are super, since they are a bit flexible. The old style molds are tricky, as you don't want to immerse them in water hot enough to melt the whole surface off your piece, but you do have to unmold. If you eschew the jiggle and make it harder, say, using 1/4 or less of the water, you can usually pry it out without breaking it up. If you do, remember that gelatin is also glue, so you can glue it back together with some hot Jell-O. Not too hot.
A lot of the fun for me is trying out a different technique every year, so I get spontaneity and surprise, so I do usually start way early to work that out, despite the joy of having a deadline to meet. You can remelt and reuse gelatin, so when it doesn't work just put it in the microwave.
I personally use just plain gelatin, which I buy in 25 pound lots, because I wouldn't want to run out. I dye things in my business so I have a lot of dye, and I should mention that We Don't Generally Eat Jell-O! I mean, you can, if you like. Apparently it is good for you to have that bone-strengthening animal matter, and you can get Vegan gelatin too, but to me it is just gross as a food and all those chemicals have to be poisonous. It's glorious to look at and the chemicals taste good, since they're made to do that, but I don't know why they give it to you when you're sick. I guess because it is delightful in so many ways, and you need that in the hospital. But anyway, you can get the Knox brand, which is rather expensive, or you can petition Glorybee to stock it in bulk which I have tried. It's still not too cheap, even though they have little else to do with all those beef hooves and whatnot. Last time I think it was about $10 per pound in bulk. It's also heavy so I go for the free freight deals.
If you do use the Knox, I figured out that it is a quarter ounce per envelope of gelatin (last time I looked.) The formula I use for my dried stuff is 3 oz per cup of water. And mix it up in cold water, stirring, let it "bloom" for maybe 10 minutes, and then melt it in the microwave for a short time, maybe 30 seconds at a time, until it is clear. It may have some foam to skim off. I use canning jars, as hot gelatin is quite the thing to burn you and splatter all over your floor, immediately hardening into a hard job to clean up. And burning you. Sticks like glue.
Jell-O brand has its own rules, and used to have a "jigglers" recipe, which you can use. While it is possible to carve, slice, and use other knife techniques, molding it into the approximate shape you want is easier. For your piece, there aren't any rules, and you can use all the Ken and Allan dolls you want, rubber slugs, exotic coloring like black and white (candy supplies work well), or even metal powders like I did for the gold. Do whatever you want to have fun playing, and make your statement or your mess. You do not have to follow the theme or even have a theme or an intention or artist statement or any of that. Do whatever you want.
It is supposed to be FUN!!!!
When it stops being fun, put it in the fridge or feed it to the possums or whatever you want to do. I have mine all in the attic and my room full of costumes. I like the dried because I can keep it for the Jell-O Art Museum (in my attic) and also recycle it into next year's piece, or even give it away to future Queens. I can post more about the many tricks I have learned for making it work, but you can also try things and maybe they will be new to me.
That's enough for now. You can email me at dmcwho@efn.org if you have something specific you need to know, or join in the Facebook discussions, and if you look around instagram and facey, or google, you will find out that there is an international community of jelly artists and some of them are incredible.
Subjects for another post...the sun is out. Best of luck, Artists of Gelatinaceae, the Realm of Jell-O Art. You rule!
