Technique

 I need to read back myself and figure out things I have seemingly forgotten, like how to get the dried gelatin out of the dishes. I use pyrex pie plates, bowls, and other glass dishes to make the pieces because I like the gloss that comes from the surfaces, but actually flexible plastic is so much easier. 

I swirl the molten gelatin around in bowls to make large pieces for the flowers, conveniently shaped like flowers already. In the plastic bowls, the thinner edges generally pull away from the bowl as they dry, since it shrinks a little I believe. If the gelatin is in the right stage, I can pull on the loosened edges and pry the rest of the piece out carefully, avoiding tearing it, and the gelatin can stretch as it pulls away, adding lots of ruffle and shape that I can't control, which I like. Most times I can get it out in one piece, or a couple anyway.

With the glass bowls, the edges stick too tight, but sometimes I can make a little cut in the still wet gelatin in the bottom of the bowl and pull it out from there. Gelatin is surprisingly strong and holds itself together unless it is too thin or too wet. I can also get the edges  slightly wet, using a brush, and that rehydrates them enough to be at an earlier, more flexible stage. Other times I use a knife or my fingernail to cut through the wet part enough to get the piece starting to pull away enough to leverage the whole thing.

Sometimes with the pie plates I have to run a little water over the whole thing, a little like starting over, and then wait until it is at the "right stage." I am pretty sure this is my problem with things sticking too tightly to remove. I've gotten lazy about timing and am letting them dry too long before tending them.

If I mix it up in the late afternoon, it is usually too wet to mess with at bedtime, and by the time I get to it 12 or 18 hours later, I missed the flexible stages. If I mix it up in the morning and then try to flip it over before bed, that is probably better. I just have to plan it that way and then stick to the plans. 

When I assemble the pieces, I often brush them with water to bend them a little, tear them with a ruffly edge, or make a cut or glue a joint. To glue them, I use molten gelatin, spoon or dip the places I want to glue together, and hold them for 90 seconds, or prop them in some way that they will self-adhere. It can be messy and it takes a lot of time, as well as hand strength. I usually work on multiple pieces at once so they can sit and really get firmly attached, because it is easy to accidentally make them come apart and have to start over. They accumulate a layer of a kind of cubed-up gelatin that is past the glueing stage and just makes the joints thicker and less clean-looking. I generally try to scrape that off.

So in case you are working with the dried gelatin, here is my recipe again: Fill a quart canning jar half full of cold water, and stir in 6 ounces of gelatin powder, gradually, avoiding lumps. Hot water will lump it up fast, so be sure to use cold. (Hot water is advised for the Jell-O brand, to dissolve the bigger quantity of sugar, not the gelatin.) I just use plain, generic gelatin I buy in bulk online.

Then let the mixture sit for 10 minutes or so, to "bloom" or absorb water, and then melt it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. It should end up clear, and then you can pour it into smaller jars to add dye or other things (like gold powder) and then into your dishes or molds.

If you are just starting out you may find silicone or plastic molds work easily. You can flex them to pop the pieces out, but keep them thinnish, say 1/4 inch thick or thinner. A cupcake of gelatin will not dry and will probably mold, but just the outside layer of a cupcake will work fine. 

There is usually a layer of foam on top of the quart jar, which you can skim off, lay in a plastic lid or something, and use for clouds or seafoam or lace, as it's nicely white. The plain gelatin is kind of yellowish. I just use fabric dyes mostly, because I have those around, but you can color it with a lot of things, from food coloring, to candy coloring to paint. I also have a lot of powdered pigments like metallics and neons that I use regularly. You should certainly experiment with what you have around rather than investing heavily in expensive art materials. Remember, Jell-O Art is kind of anti-art, in that is accessible, inexpensive, experimental and irreverent. Nobody is going to be a Jell-O Art Critic. 

So check on your gelatin after maybe 6 hours and see what it will do. You can cut it, press things into it, and later paint it or whatever works. You can coat fabrics or cheesecloth with it. Here's some human forms made eons ago by the person who first tried drying it, in our group anyway, Celeste LeBlanc. They're made from net and fabrics coated with the gelatin. I think she made it even thicker than I do, and embedded various things in it, like snakeskins and ribbons.

The image at the beginning of the blog I made by cutting a pie plate of fairly thick gelatin in a spiral cut, from the center out to the edge. Then I carefully pulled it out an hung it up to dry. It is boingy and very fun and I have made lots of these and smaller ones since then. Getting movement out of gelatin is just extra fun you can have.

There Can Be Pitfalls

Had to laugh at myself yesterday as I searched for what could possibly be smelling so bad in my kitchen. Leftover chicken wrappers in the trash, old cat food that had fallen off the dish? 

No, and it should have been obvious...rotten Jell-O. I had made some and forgotten about it, gotten lazy with using it up and it was sitting in jars liquefying itself.  Do yourself a favor and do not allow rotten gelatin to turn you off of Jell-O Art forever.

It's an animal product, made from hides and hooves and other parts of mainly cows, we've been told...and when it rots, it is vile. You won't forget it. This is only about the third time in 30-some years I have let it happen and oh my, it surprised me.

Also, just a caution...don't put it down your drains. It will at some point in the wastestream solidify and  stay stuck like the glue it is for maybe forever, I don't know. I try hard to keep it out of the sink drains. Also I don't like getting it on my hands that much...it is hard to get off and dries out my skin. And the really strong dried gelatin can lift pieces right out of glass, including pyrex. 

So now that I have spoiled most of your fun,  I hope you will keep working on it despite these downsides. The dried gelatin, once dry, is really stable and unless it gets wet or isn't dry all the way through, it won't cause problems. It's like plastic or paper almost. But that's when it's thin. If you make your pieces too thick and they don't dry all the way through, they can get moldy. When they're drying you have to flip them over a few times, every few hours maybe, so they can dry on both sides. The keeps them from sticking too well to your plates or bowls or whatever you are drying them in, too.

I put my dishes and pieces on top of the furniture, the piano and TV cabinet and various shelves. I have electric heat and up by the ceiling is the hottest climate. In the summer I put it outside sometimes, but there is a lot of dust outside and in the sun, sometimes it just remelts instead of drying. So much to know about it.

I'm still unfocused about what I'm doing for the show. It's the perfect time for something political and I'm likely to do that. Once I did a mold from an AR-15 (a real one...I knew a gun person at the time) and buried it in a coffin-shaped box of dirt and flowers. I'm not sure how many people could see it in there. I also made some bullets and other accessories of violence and dressed my manikin half pedestal in camo. Probably not going in that direction, but things are turning over in my creative brain. 

I love this period of time when I can just let my brain wander it's banks and come up with wild ideas. Sometimes I make things and abandon them. I make a lot of things out of sticks since it's tree-pruning time, and sometimes end up using them. It gives me a reason to be outside when the sun is out like it was yesterday. I'm always at my happiest outside. 

Of course I was supposed to be working on the script and doing things like tending my Jell-O but once I cleaned up the rotten stuff and the catbox and took out the garbage for good measure, the outdoors was too insistent to sit here and type. 

So today the script. We have some great ideas percolating and it's going to be fun. Guaranteed. 

Brainstorms and Snowstorms

We're not getting enough snow for me, but I am sure some of you who are would rather not be. I just like seeing it fall, mostly. I have to be careful that I myself do not fall, so I barely get to go out in it when we do have it. But I'm still hanging onto some old cross country skiis as I remember how fun it was to create a little run around the block one year. I suppose I should let them go, like my rollerblades. Anyone want a nice pair of rollerblades, size 9? I wish I had kept my quads instead. But that's how it is to let go, you don't always do it in a sensible way.

I pulled out all my Jell-O pieces planning to make some flowers but just haven't been able to get started. I tried making a big sheet of gelatin but forget how I did that before...guess I can scroll on down to 2012 and figure out how I did it then. It's down in that stack somewhere. 

Yes, all of my Jell-O Art Secrets  are down in this blog somewhere. If you are wondering how to do a thing, it is fun to discover on your own but there is also some benefit to what has come before you. This will be our 33rd show I think. I'll have to check. We've tried a lot of things.

 The photo is from my 2012 piece, where I tried making flat sheets that could be used like paper and it turned into a kind of autobiographical artist's book. I screenprinted and drew on them. I had a broken heel at the time and couldn't do much else, so I did some serious Jell-O Art. It was hard to photograph but it's  generally at every show to marvel at in person.

The fun news is that we finally got together for a great brainstorm, which is hard to do on zoom because we are an enthusiastic group of people who all talk at the same time, with guitars going and people looking up songs on the internet and singing them in full voice. It's fairly hilarious for us but probably painful for people who can't take much chaos. 

Our narrative is lined out, but we will be embellishing and changing it a lot over the next few weeks. By the end of the month we have to have it mostly pinned down so we can rehearse dances and harmonies and get the props together. 

I have vowed to make way simpler sets this year...last year I got carried away. I love making the sets and props. I love working on art with a purpose that no one can direct me in and does not have to make money. I spend so much of my artistic effort on making things to sell, Jell-O Art is just a huge relief. It can be so fun!

For the performance we brainstorm ideas in a pretty disorganized way and I write them all down as fast as I can and we try to make them cohere into a narrative and drama, generally a musical of some sort with parody songs relating to Jell-O. It can get super silly and borderline offensive but we try to stay family-friendly and appeal to our varied audience. We have a lot of people who come just for the performance and an earlier set of people who come for the art. Some people may come for the Tacky Food Buffet...there's rarely anything that is actual food but some people eat it. 

The whole thing is such a cathartic counterpoint to the serious drama of life that we are all depending on it this year as usual. There's always somebody experiencing grief or illness, family complications, work issues, or more, but we get together for a couple of hours, sing and make jokes, and enjoy our connections. The show itself is the same thing. Viva the Jell-O Art Show!

Hell-O Jell-O

 We chose a theme early this year, to get it out of the way. It's Hell-O Jell-O 2025 and we hope it is nice and open to interpretation so artists have lots of latitude. I have been thinking about interpretations of hell, even though it is a concept I don't believe in, but then concepts used in Jell-O Art don't have to have any grounding in reality.

Of course Jell-O itself wouldn't do that well in a hellscape, due to melting, but the stuff would dry fast, so I might still be able to use it there. And the rendering would be quicker. But besides being just hot and full of fire, I don't know that much about hell without moving right over to the hell-on-earth kinds of things we are presently observing.

And Jell-O Art is supposed to be an escape from oppressive realities. So maybe some musings on Hell-O and how we are currently using greetings in the post-pandemic era. Actually we are only post- on one pandemic, and seem to be lined up for a few more that we won't even know are coming. Could go back to using Barbie as a stand-in for myself in a tableau but am not sure that is a direction I am willing to pick up again.

So I'm just going to make flowers for awhile. The way I make them is pretty easy. I have eight plastic tubs of dried gelatin pieces in various shapes, colors and sizes and I will sort through them,  choosing ones of similar or compatible colors and sizes to group up as a start. Then I'll select maybe six or seven per dish and start assembling flowers. I melt some plain gelatin in the microwave for 30 seconds in a little half-pint canning jar and then use a little spoon to dab it on the places where I want the pieces to fit together. I hold them in place for about 90 seconds so the gelatin can set, then put them on a place and spoon a little more molten gelatin on them to reinforce. I'll make it resemble some kind of floral thing and then put some kind of leaves on it. 

If small, I "glue" them to branches and make long-stemmed roses or little plants, propped up in more jars. I might make a core of tiny filaments or stamen-like pieces in a contrasting color. If I want to make big ones, I used to fasten a hairband of some kind to the bottom so I can wear big flowers on my head. I ran out of the good hairbands so am not sure how many more of those I will make, but I do love them. You have to be a little careful about making them comfortable to wear, and when you wear them, hug people very carefully so you don't poke their eyes out.

I'm wanting to work big this year but am not focused on anything yet. I like to play around for a month or so while something comes to mind. It could be about the theme, or it could be something for me to wear in the show, like this one I made last year. 

And I'll probably make some on sticks to sell at the show, as people do like a keepsake. Have no ideas about the shirts but we'll see when we get closer. If I use a celebrity, I'll find photos of them to work from, but I can always interpret the theme or just do something fun to print. The t-shirts are almost always very last-minute.

You can scroll through some previous posts for more details on how to use Jell-O as an art medium, as I usually repeat the instructions rather frequently so everyone gets a chance at some artistic success. It can be easy, or frustrating, depending on how you approach it. I like to discover something new every year, so I might push myself to try something I haven't, if I can think of anything. Just have to set aside some time to sink into it.

I do have plenty of sticks, as it is fruit-tree pruning time and this sunny weather has allowed me to almost finish that fun task of winter. I love sticks and have them all over my yard, creating habitat and piles since only so much can fit in a tote every other week. I suppose it looks messy to some people. I've now become the messiest yard on the block since my bad neighbors got evicted and all of their left-behind trash was hauled away. I've tried cleaning up a bit since that house is going on the market, and a couple of my pieces of yard art were already hauled off from the side next to them. I get it...one man's treasure, etc., but they had better lay off my aged wood boards that surround my gardens. I like it. I like moss too but I do clean it off the sidewalks every year, as well as the roofs. I have a lot of moss. I'm trying to get ready for the rain to come back because that is probably going to be some major staying in weather, which is when I will have plenty of time for more Jell-O.

Jell-O Art Show March 22!

 The date for this year's Jell-O art show has been set, and the Radar Angels have started meeting to figure out the theme and focus for the performance. We all enjoy the brainstorming phase which takes most of January and sometimes spills over into February. But we're on a short timeline so we have to get busy!

I made two batches of Jell-O, but nothing is really percolating for me yet. I need to brush up on my skills...I'm  having trouble getting the gelatin out of the dishes, probably because  I'm leaving it in too long. 

To briefly remind readers how I do it, I work in dried gelatin so I can take my time and do things you can't do with wet. If you are new, I suggest you start with wet, and you can even use Jell-O brand boxes if you want. Use less water and try out some techniques like cutting it and using molds, etc. Buy some of the Knox clear gelatin, or the Kosher kind, and play with it, adding some dye or food coloring or whatever. It is not a particularly cooperative medium. 

You can use plastic molds, anything you have or want to try. If you can't get it to release from the mold, get it wet, wait a bit, and let it rehydrate enough to be flexible again. 

For my recipe, I fill a quart canning jar half full of cold water, and put in 6 ounces of gelatin powder. If you are using Knox, that is a lot of envelopes. I think there is 1/4 ounce in those little envelopes. So us professional dried gelatin artists buy it in bulk on the internet. Last time I think I paid about $10 a pound and try to get free freight as it is heavy to ship. If you have a lot, you can just throw it on the compost if you don't like the results.

I stir in the gelatin powder well, then let it sit for ten minutes or so to "bloom." You will see it solidify but in a grainy opaque way, so then melt it in the microwave for 2 minutes. When it is a clear liquid, you can pour it into molds or your planned containers. I use glass pie plates and plastic or glass bowls, trying for fairly thin layers so it will dry. Then I put it on top of the high pieces of furniture where the heat collects. In 6 or 8 hours it can be pried out and flipped over to dry on the back. You can cut it, tear it, fold it, lay it over shapes, do whatever to get shapes and pieces you can use for your plan or your play.

I usually then use melted gelatin to glue pieces together to make flowers, animals, birds, whatever. I spread out a lot of pieces of various colors and see what I can make from them. Now, when I don't have much of a plan, I just play with it to get myself in the mood.

Of course some people like to use the wet Jell-O to make sculptures in that last week or few days before the show. That's also fun, but you might want to practice a few things first just to get familiar with things. Gelatin does get moldy and rotten and smells awful so be careful if you keep it around. You can try a little bleach to get rid of the mold sometimes...or out on the compost it can go. 

 It's all supposed to be fun, remember. If you want to see more photos, there are a lot on the MKAC website where there is an event tab for previous shows. A call to artists will eventually go out but it is easy to miss the promotions and the little 3-hour show. You have to pay attention! 

I do have a FB page, Gelatinaceae, and hope to regularly write here, so stay tuned. There is lots of instructional info in previous posts plus reviews of past shows when you scroll down. Get to cooking!