Sets and Props and Scripts, Oh My!

 I've gotten into far left field working on the script, sets and props for the performance, which is coming together well for a change. We like to keep it secret for maximum fun for the audience, so I'll be vague, but I just wanted to report how much fun it is.

Here's the set from last year. I had to promise everyone I would simplify greatly and I am trying, but I love making these things and it is so far from my usual art experience of production screenprinting that I'm loving the opportunity to let loose. This view is just one of several as we went through several "rooms" of this Mystery Dungeon trying to teach our two AI devices what Jell-O even was and why it was important.

Somehow we always land on a "Jell-O saves the world" narrative and this year will also follow that as this world needs a lot of saving right now. We are all reeling like much of the world at what is happening in the macrocosm so we plan to be extra ridiculous and hopefully provide some catharsis for our audience and ourselves. It has to be fun...and it isn't easy to find anything really funny about what is going on, without ignoring a lot of what isn't. But we are carefully navigating through all the things we want to say and a lot of things we can't say. 

The video of last year isn't the greatest but we're lucky to have it, as this show happens briefly once and then it is a memory. There have been a few shows that were superb and videos that were not, and none of us really remember everything. I know for a long time I was stuck in the back with my shirt table and couldn't see or hear what was happening on stage, before I started performing in 2013. Now the problem is more that I get tunnel vision on stage and am concentrating so hard on my lines and keeping things organized that I don't even see other people's costumes or how things work on set. I do know that people take up a lot more room than I expect and that's a big reason why I have to scale back my set plans every year. It's a little bit funny. Last year I had to take quite a few items home at tech rehearsal. 

But the years when it is more spare still work great if we maintain our cleverness throughout the collaborative writing part, where people write their parody songs and we attempt to fit them together in a coherent narrative that we can them build out as we go. I'm on script three this weekend and have outlined it, put in some lines, but plan to do a fully written version and then a streamlined one with the lyrics pulled out so everyone learns the sequence and we can identify hard cues. 

Our band is amazing and packed with real musical expertise so our practices are lively, with the guitars noodling and people singing little bits out loud as we also try to go through the script and firm things up. People develop their characters over time and we are honing in on how they will interact and what will be funny or fall flat. There is pacing to consider...like you have to keep any slower music confined so that no one gets bored, and you have to remember things like we only have a couple of mics and if you want your lines to be heard, you have to speak into them correctly. Most of us are amateurs at this; I know I am. 

But I do love this writing stage and it's fun letting my mind work out its ideas for the set pieces I am going to make. I love having a wide-ranging process for working on the production as well as the event, and I really love having this three-month (shorter now with the earlier show date of March 22) space to just enjoy it all. The only real rule we have is that is has to be fun.

Here's the video from last year. Sorry about losing my costume...it wasn't as well-thought out as I meant it to be. I thought the set changes worked out fairly well though, even though most of them weren't really necessary. The audience likes to use their imaginations too, so this year they will get to do that even more. 

 

 

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!