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.