Surrender to Jell-O

It's not looking good for a full recovery from Covid restrictions by April 3rd. It's definitely not possible to rehearse a show in the ways we used to in January and February and March. So for many weeks I agonized and wanted to not be the Queen of Jell-O Art and not have to figure out what to do for 2021.

It made me angry and shut down just to think about it. Also, April 3rd is Opening Day of Saturday Market and I really hate to miss that to play Queen...I need the money and Market needs me. For the last several years the calendar has favored me with end-of-March Jell-O Art Show dates and I've gotten too used to it. But April Fool's Day does not negotiate.

Plus, nothing is normal or even predictable and that has been true for a year (or a lifetime, depending on your perspective.) I'm worn down by it. 

I have a box of unprinted t-shirts and an unfinished design and an unfinished script from last year that was all pre-pandemic. So innocent and unuseable now.

 

There was actually some Jell-O Art. We kind of had a show on FB and that counts. So this I think will be our 32nd. Or 33rd, I have lost track.

Excellent piece by Kari Berg, and I made some props for our song Jell-O on the Grits by Nan. And go over to Instagram and see the multitude of photos by David Gibbs, who has done it year round in style.

But the thing that always works is some level of surrender. We had a zoom where I got laughed at, which generally happens at our first meeting every year since they know me and I am always this way...reluctant and in need of some kind of adjustment. While it is pretty hard to find anything amusing in the zetigeist, there has to be something. There are plenty of songs to parody. I'm kind of obsessed with

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdZLi9oWNZg 

and there's always making a 2021 version of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZj8lrSZHsE

So I laughed at myself, and recognized that as Queen, while I do have some impulse to serve the public and the fans, and the troupe, I am not required to be a superhero. This Queen is vulnerable and human, and also old, so I could indeed cut back and do less in response to how much harder it is.

The Radar Angels are working on a YouTube video idea, for this and for the absence of Fair, which is also not happening, but I opted out of performing on that, so far. The performing is still not all that much fun for me, though I like to sing. And now that I am fatter from all the stress eating, lots of my little costumes aren't that fun either. So I checked that requirement off my list. I can still do it if the fun quotient improves.

Since it is likely that attendance will still be restricted at the gallery, I could maybe not show up that day and go to Market. I'd have to do something, but maybe I could make a video too. I could make it as professional as possible with a little advice from some new techy friends I made by volunteering for the Virtual Fair, OCF in the Clouds. I might have to leave the house to do it, but that hurdle is small enough.

And the workshop I had planned for last year, where people help me use up all my tubs of dried gelatin pieces by making things, might also be possible in some limited form. A small group could do it in person, as indoor gatherings are almost happening now. That would be in mid-March, and could be videotaped to show at the Jell-O Show or online. Not overwhelmingly difficult to imagine.

So, I got out all my stuff and made some Jell-O. I made some colorful blendy pieces to be cheery, and had one idea for a sculpture I'd like to do, so I collected some branches and sticks because everything's better on a stick. I was inspired by an Art Beat show about a floral designer who makes incredible wearable and displayable natural sculptures with flowers. Anything you can do with flowers I can generally do with Jell-O. 

So I'm launched the tiniest bit. No promises. If it isn't fun, I'm not going to do it.

Make some yourself! The dried recipe is 6 ozs gelatin in two cups of water, stir well, let bloom, melt in the microwave and pour out in thin layers. After 8 hours or so, peel it out of the dishes and flip it over. Flip it and tend it for a couple of days as it dries, then glue it together with more molten gelatin. Try stuff. 

There are lots of other possibilities. David Gibbs, the Knight, is making edible stuff mostly with agar agar. There are incredible instagrams that show video of wobble and jiggle, masterfully done. Look around the internet and you will find tons of inspiration. 

If you have kids, make it science and art at the same time. Play! 

That's an order from the Queen. If you want to, that is. 

We have T-Shirts!

I managed to get some t-shirts made. After seeing the poster made by an actual graphic artist, I felt a bit intimidated but forged on anyway. We wanted to honor St. Aretha of Franklin this year so I took an iconic photo of her and Jell-O-ized it.

Being lazy, I only wanted to make two screens and print two colors, but it just wasn't enough, so I've ended up taking my Sharpies and coloring in her earrings. I do like it better that way.

I also spent a few hours dusting off a lot of Jell-O pieces for the workshop and show. I like taking out the Jell-O Art Museum for a spin once a year, even though it isn't really the whole thing. I have an attic full of odd pieces that I don't think I'll bring out this year. For one thing, one carload is plenty. I don't want to make too many trips across town, risking things falling apart and getting damaged. Plus dusting and repairing them takes a lot of time I'd rather spend gardening on these beautiful spring days we are having right now.

But shirts had to be made, so here they are. I held back from filling up the open space with more information or drawings. Let it be inferred that music began with St. Aretha. No reason to stick too closely with the theme, anyway.

Original print, without the hand-coloring:

Improved version

Better News

Yay! There is now a script and some new energy, so I guess life and Jell-O Art will go on. I'm trying to focus on the t-shirts, and then the Workshop, figuring out my outfits and props I'll need to demonstrate techniques.

I had to take myself in hand and realize I was losing perspective by trying to do too many big things at once. It was kind of paralyzing. I even went to bed one night at 9:00. That seemed to help.

Plus a kind soul (or three) offered some collaboration and things rapidly got back on track.

The hard part was I discovered a huge number of Saturday Market records that were still hiding in their storage area but are now here tempting me. I've kept the boxes closed as hard as I can. That is going to be a much longer, more complicated project than I had been admitting.

So Jell-O Art Show moved to the top of the agenda, and here we go!

My first appearance as a performer 2013

Tacky Food, 20th show, so 2008

One of the best shirts

Dang it all

One year we did this song "You Don't Want to Know" which was of course about what Jell-O is really all about: offal. It is made from cow hides and hooves, and etcetera, so we like to just pretend that is not true. It was a really fun song, a Led Zepplin parody, and here is a photo of me singing it:

That was 2015.

Then last summer I forced my family to watch our last show video out of a deep need to be patted on the head by them, and as I looked at it from an outsider's view, they commented that it looked like a lot more fun for us than it was for anyone watching. Which stung, but was essentially true. The reason it is fun for our audience and the public is just because they decide it is, and enjoy catching our enthusiasm and delight and willingness to just get up in public and be silly. None of us really want to know why it is fun, we just want it to be fun.

It's serious business to do that, of course, and takes a lot of effort and preparation, but ultimately it is a lot of fun in general and sometimes fun in specifics. Today it isn't.

We have very little time left until the show, and I've got nothing. No Jell-O, no plans to make any, and no script. I did write one, giving up a precious Saturday last week in the snowy isolation to write it, but it died of its own weight last night. It was just too complex and nobody really cared about the Hero's Journey and our political and environmental future and the need to advance a positive one. That is work for another day, not March 30th, if the Angels group is correct. I'm not really upset about losing that script, as it wasn't really workable at all, just a piece of writing I did out of the desperate need for a framework. Editing it wasn't going to work as I had hoped.

Of course I feel that things are far too critical to not address our future, but it is more our job to give people a break from that for 20 minutes in a 3-hour event, than it is to give them any tools to craft it. We just have the same damn tools, music, art, and silliness. We end up doing the same show every year, some version of Jell-O Art is the only thing that matters. Sometimes it saves the world, sometimes it just occupies a gallery.

So I have no real reason to be upset today, except that so many of the Angels have found reasons to drop out of this non-show, including some of our best singers, and now we have no script and people don't even really love the songs we chose, which have no lyrics, most of them. And it's my job to put something together, as soon as possible, and this time it has to be right because there is just no time left. And of course I am totally depleted and discouraged.

So I write. Since this is supposed to be a promotional blog for Jell-O Art, I figure if I expose my deep anxiety and despair, it will just come off as drama and add to the mystique and eventual delight when my personal hero's journey completes itself with some denoument onstage. As if! I want to quit too!

What if there were no performance, or I just went back to not being in it? This will only be my 7th year of being in it. Other people used to write the scripts and do the slogging. Are they not doing it because I came along? Is all of this my fault as well as my responsibility? It is not easy being Queen.

I'm eating lunch as I write this because stuffing my face is about my only joy. I have been getting zero exercise this winter and making zero income (okay, I made $97.50 in the first two months, not counting my pitiful amount of social security) as I am immersed in this big archiving project for Saturday Market. I am passionate about doing it and am making progress (I'm in the 90s now) but I just sit and read every day and night and I am severely out of shape. I don't even have time to get outside except to hang my laundry out in the rare sunlight when we get it, or walk to a meeting. I still have meetings and minutes to type for them. I hate my life in a lot of ways right now. Mostly because it is not healthy to eat mostly bread and canned soup and get no exercise. That is a proven way to make yourself sad and have aching joints and a fuzzy head. But regarding Market, now I know too much and I have assigned myself the impossible task of interpreting the history in a useful and positive way. I should find myself a network of historical writers who have faced these issues of how to describe the warts without damaging the host. It seems a tricky task and at this moment I am definitely procrastinating.

I also watch meetings on  livestream, OCF Board meetings and City Council meetings. OCF just imploded and pretty much burned to the managerial ground, in case you didn't know. I'll try not to say much about it although I'd like to do a full-on rant. If no one affords either the managers or the Board members any respect, there is no center to hold there. The members can sure mess it up, but the people who are doing the actual jobs of governing and managing need to be granted some damn authority and trust! It is a two-way street, trust. Right now I'd like to walk away from that, too.

But I won't. There's an important lesson in there for me to learn about how to be a longterm member of a membership group as your role shifts as it must. There's too much invested to walk away, there's no certainty whatsoever that you will play a future role, and although you have the perspective of seeing the cycles and pitfalls as they dependably repeat, you can't really prevent them from doing that or add much to the solutions when they do. What worked then is probably not going to work this time (though it might!) and you yourself might be a bigger part of the problem than the solution, which is why the young ones always want the old heads to go away. Just retire and let us make some new mistakes! Well, if I could I might. There really isn't a retirement choice built into my life. About my only power is keeping my mouth shut and obviously that is not a skill I possess.

I do have some work to do, that might be fun, making the t-shirts for the Jell-O Art Show. I'm planning to use an image of St. Aretha of Franklin, whose photos online are very jellogenic. You could do almost any of them with a Jell-O mold hairdo or outfit. I don't know what I'll do to her image, yet, but it got me a little excited to go look at her photos and listen to a few of her songs. We're going to do Chain of Fools in the show, just so you can share the anticipation. It's about as political as we will get I suppose. The first photo would be easy but she would look like it was just her head on top of a plate. The second one is pretty Jell-O-rific
but I wouldn't be able to use the arms anyway, although I might try. It's a fun distraction.

So, as you can now see, I am well on the way to putting aside my despair and disappointment and moving into a more adaptive phase. It's what all the true Jell-O Artists do. I am still not going to make any Jell-O though, at least not today.

Have I told you I will be doing a workshop? It will be on March 23rd, at MKAC, just a little session of Ask the Queen. Not the Queen of Soul, the Queen of Jell-O Art. I plan to wing it mostly, as I have no real time to plan anything except a costume. I'm committed to that, so whatever happens with this current drama, that's on the table. See you there!

Promises, promises...

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.

Inspiration

Have you started planning your Jell-O for the show? Here are some photos from last year to get you thinking about the possibilities. As you can see, many people use props and the regular Jell-O brand to express their creative idea. We don't have rules against your oddest of ideas; we don't have rules! You can make what you want. We don't judge. So there is no "Best of Show" although lots of people have their favorite pieces and artists. We have artists of all ages.

I try to give each artist some attention to thank them for participating and encourage them to be proud of their accomplishment. For many, as it was for me, this will be your first chance to put art on a pedestal in a gallery and really call it Art! It's good to let yourself be proud and at the same time embrace the silly, non-competitive, non-evaluative structure of what we do. If you say it is art, it is.

No degrees or credentials are needed. Lots of us use "Jell-O names" just to add to the silliness. We have certainly had many famous artists participate, as well as local celebrities. One man used to bring his exhibits all the way down from Seattle although he was from the edible Jell-O art universe (there is one) and he was surprised that we didn't have that requirement, or winners. He brought five pieces the first year, I think, all wonderful, precisely engineered works of food art, and I think he was disappointed that he didn't win anything. My Queenly view of it is that if we have no winners, we have no losers.

Everyone has had a chance to feel like a loser, and no one needs more of it. I don't like hierarchies and judgements for self-expression. It takes courage to put yourself out there, even in a silly way, so I want that to be the mark of the artist, that simple courage to step up and display your emotional and artistic pursuits to the public. I'd like it if all of us were unafraid to do that.

I make and sell crafts and have for decades, so I have plenty of experience with rejection as well as acceptance. It's still thrilling when someone chooses my products over all the others available, and I won't deny that my ego thrives on that "winning" represented in my sales total. The regular marketplace is competitive but we can work against that by sharing information, being welcoming to other artists, especially if they make what we make. The less we try to dominate the more we all can succeed. You can see the end result of competition in our economy as companies get bigger and bigger, swallow diversity of offerings, and smaller entities are driven from the marketplace for lack of opportunity. My life is not going to go that way, so I work against it as hard as I can.

I never studied art formally, either. I was devastated by the interference of my first grade art teacher, and hardly tried again. My outlets became Hallowe'en costumes, singing, cooking, Girl Scout badges, and other safe spaces for little girls in the 1950s and 60s. When Jell-O Art came along in 1988, I was hesitant, but thrilled with the results. Through it, I found a creative process, and an awareness of what making art was all about, and although it took decades, eventually I was able to embrace the idea that I could be a Real Artist just by doing Real Art. I don't find the art world closed to me, except in the spaces where judgement, credentials, and hierarchies rule (like almost all of it.) So holding the Jell-O Art Show every year and reinforcing that open creative space has been my vital force that keeps me going.



Each one of these pieces was made by someone who went through their own, personal creative process, and had their own emotions about it, which I hope included joy and laughter and a few of those moments when intuition takes over and the internal critic stays silent. That would be ideal. Some people put in incredible amounts of time and effort; other throw it together the morning of the show or the night before. Anything goes! And if you really don't want to make pedestal art, there is always the Tacky Food Buffet! Just make sure it will be safe to eat. Jell-O treats are always popular at the table, and we've seen some spectacular ones. Sometimes they are even very tasty.

Generally the show is lighthearted and fun for all, though of course we are sometimes disappointed when our results don't match our imaginations. Don't give in to your critic. Bring your piece no matter what. We can all learn from your efforts, and the happy accidents that creative chaos can spawn. Just make some Jell-O tonight. Make some magic!

Saturdays in Winter

I feel pretty guilty about how much I love Saturdays at home in the offseason from Market. Staying in bed past 5:00 am, only needing one cup of coffee, putting on sweatpants instead of rain pants...but April will come. At least this year I don't have to miss Opening Day of the Market for the Jell-O Art Show. That's quite a valuable gift to me.

But that means our show is on March 31st instead of April Fool's Day, as it was last year. That juxtaposition added so much of the joy dimension to our planning. Getting to emphasize our foolishness was a lot of fun, so we could pull out all of the stops and really get down into our silly. It made things so easy. This year, a whole different story.

Being on the tail end of Spring Break means traveling vacationers, including some of our troupe, so we are smaller in number. Which, as you may have noticed when we fill the stage, is not necessarily a bad thing. We usually have way too many of us, and it's always better to have a small number of really committed players than a large number who can't make it to practice and unintentionally throw wrenches in the works. Working from consensus as we do, building that consensus is a task.

So today I am procrastinating re-writing the script. It was jelling, we were getting somewhere, and then forces beyond our control intervened and some parts of it are not going to jiggle properly. I know I will find a way through it, and it's simpler and will make our lives easier, but procrastination is my mode and I'm sticking to it. So today I procrastinate the script, telling myself it is working out in my creative brain even if I am not aware of it. I will definitely get down to the revisions, and it won't be hard, but these Saturdays in the offseason, well, bad habits tempt me.

Like what if I drank a beer or two like I used to in my younger days? When I was building my house I would fiddle around re-arranging my dryrun tile setups, make sketches of the cabinets I didn't really know how to build, or work some more on the tearout of the lath and plaster or the leveling of the ceiling, or the moving around of all of the piles of stuff and work equipment in the way. I still had to have my shop set up in part of the house as I remodeled it. I've been thinking a lot about that 12-year project (no, it isn't really finished, but you know that if you have ever remodeled anything.) The offseason is supposed to be the time when I work on my writing projects (I have two books going on that house remodel) as well as my Jell-O Art. But in the same way as I did last year, I got out the writing project, spread it around the living room, and then got out the Jell-O Art and spread it all out over top of the research. And then the taxes...and then the Jell-O T-shirt design...and of course the things I need to do to get ready for April. Forget making money. I'm living on savings as I like to do all winter.

So this week and weekend I was working on the t-shirt design, fairly leisurely, as it can be more last-minute (and is often better for that), but realized I had to pitch in on the poster. We don't really have a graphic artist in our crew, and we've used up most of the goodwill of the people we know who can do such things for us for the reward of a t-shirt and seeing their work around town for a few weeks. Initially I thought it would be easy to take the shirt image I had in my mind and use it for both projects. It was a good plan, but my technological talents are rather primitive. I kind of know how to use Paint but I am just not tooled up to get the image in printable shape. Spending the time to learn that stuff isn't appealing, but since I already use old-school techniques to do the shirts, I do kind of enjoy the old techniques, cutting the rubyliths, pasting up the components I copy out of books (or the internet) and making collage-style art with tape and scissors.

So I got myself into a weekend project. I'm making a good old-fashioned handmade poster. We'll use a color copier for the final versions, but for the art, I went to my files, sorted through a thousand images in magazines and books, pulled out my Format press-on lettering sheets, which are still mostly useable, and spread that all out on top of the taxes. Because fuck taxes anyway, excuse me very much. I'd pay them if they were actually going to be used to help the common good. I'll pay them. But not today.

Today I will cut and move things around, paper things, and it's pretty fun. I worked on it last night and I'll work on it tonight and tomorrow while I watch the Oscars. You don't want to live in my lving room. It's too cold out to want to plant peas and although the Jell-O is calling me, I have 32 roses already so I can easily make more and there is plenty of time. The poster needs to happen so we can get on with the promotion so we can entice some people to put our show on their calendars. Maude Kerns needs us. They need me, to be specific, to do my Queenly duties and get the fundraiser raising funds.

Sure, we could hire an artist, but we are DIY to the core. I'd much rather pitch in energy and time than money. I might complain some because I have too much to do, but I really think this poster project will be fun. It will look amateur, like all of my work always does to me, because I will probably never get over my self-taught lack of real credentials, even though obviously I am a real craft professional by now. It might look refreshingly amateur. Who needs another clever use of Photoshop and slick graphics that doesn't have a human element in it? My poster will definitely stand out, no question.

And thanks to Anne for mentioning interference powder. I had no idea such a thing existed, but now I get to play with it. When I get tired of cutting up paper, I'll make Jell-O. Yay! It's Saturday and I don't have to go anywhere! 

Jiggly or Not, it's Still Pretty Easy

I can tell the energy for Jell-O is rising, just looking around my living room. Once I realized I could and should make gold Jell-O in keeping with our title "Jell-O Goes Gold" I went a little wild. My plan is to make 30 gold roses for the 30th show, but today will be the test to see if I can even make ten.

I bought a lot of extra gelatin for people who might have ambitions...and will sell some of it. For while I had little starter kits with instructions and FAQs and I hope to do that again soon. In rewriting the instructions I came up with far too many details so I will start putting things in here for people to follow as they explore the medium.

The main point of the whole thing is that you should take the time to play with art. The medium isn't as important as the process: the time you spend in a fun zone just creatively solving problems and learning about what works and doesn't. It's good for you to play. Jell-O has wonderful, cheerful properties that make it appealing on many levels.

So I recommend starting with a few boxes of regular Jell-O mix...I try to buy the off-brands so that the big Kraft product won't dominate but they probably own the off-brands now too. So mix some up according to the package directions, and eat it if you still want to eat some. As it gets more art and less food, it also gets less edible. But have at it.

Then mix up a couple more with decreasing amounts of water, to see how the properties change. You get less jiggle, but also less tendency to melt at room temperature. If you like, mix in more Knox or plain gelatin instead of using less water. I am pretty sure the little Knox packets contain about a quarter-ounce of gelatin. So add one, or two, as you experiment.

Mix it up in cold water, stirring thoroughly. It has to sit and "bloom" for about ten minutes to absorb the water so it can then dissolve completely. Then melt it in the microwave or on the stove top, stirring. Pour it into molds for easiest results, and let it sit in the refrigerator if it's the jiggly kind, or just let it sit if it is the thick kind. You can use lots of things for molds, or make your own, but plastic is nice as it is flexible, which makes it easier to unmold your creation. I've used candy molds a lot for little jewels for the Tacky Food...just a bit tough to chew if you want them to unmold well. Just make up a recipe and try it out. You are supposed to be creative...not following a recipe. If you mess it up, remelt it and start over.

This artist used Jell-O as textile dye

Getting it out of the mold is the first problem to solve. Putting the mold in hot water briefly is a time-honored method but if you make it thick enough you can pry it out of the mold with your fingers without breaking it apart, when it is at the right stage. You will have to experiment. Then you can try carving the stuff, putting it though a ricer, whatever you want to do to make whatever excites you to make. I've tried many things that didn't work as well as some that were pretty exciting.

Eliminating the Jell-O brand also gets rid of the sugar and chemicals that make it attractive to ants, which is one reason I like to just use plain gelatin. I put dye in it, so it isn't edible, but without the sugar it doesn't taste good anyway. I like having more colors to choose from too, as not all the food colors blend well or end up that pretty.

The kind of art that I've been making, with dried gelatin, is a specialty with some extra skills and problems. My recipe is 3 ounces of gelatin per cup of water. I put two cups of cold water in a quart canning jar (broken glass and molten gelatin are really messy and dangerous) then stir in the gelatin two ounces at a time, stirring until it  has no lumps. Then after it blooms I melt it for two minutes in the microwave, then a minute or two more until it seems clear. Skim off the foam at the top and take out any lumps. Try not to get it all bubbly.

Then I pour it into smaller canning jars and add some dye (you can use all kinds of things for color) and pour it in thin (less than 1/8th inch) layers in pyrex pie plates. I have a whole set, as the dried gelatin can be strong enough to take chips right out of glass, so you don't want to use the same dishes for food. I put those on top of the piano and entertainment center where it is warm and dry (I have electric heat) and then some hours later I start to tend it.

This piece ended up on top of my helmet in the parade

You have to get it out of the dishes at the right time. Ideally you get it all in one piece, so there isn't any residue or small pieces to go down the drain. I imagine that molten gelatin does not stay molten long in your drain and I'm sure my waste system has a layer of impossible hardened junk in the bottom of the pipes. Avoid that. So, at about eight to twelve hours after pouring it in, I try to get it out.

One of the best ways I've discovered is to cut into the center where it is still not dried, and try to get my fingers underneath the piece and gently encourage it to let go of the glass. It stretches a little and tears itself, but sometimes I can get the whole thing out cleanly. Other times I run my fingernail or a knife around the edge and get it out from there. I let it tear into pieces, as I make mostly flowers and leaves so the shapes work well if they are varied and have not-sharp edges. You can of course cut out shapes or do whatever you like.

Another method I use is swirling the gelatin around in a bowl to coat the sides, which takes a little patience as it slowly cools and jells in place. The bowl-shaped pieces are perfect for folding into flowers. I even have some plastic bowls printed like lettuce leaves which make great petals. I prefer the gloss of the glass molds, but plastic can be almost as shiny and the top side is shiny in either case.

After you get it out, you have to tend it for a couple of days, turning it over, watching for mildew to develop (remelt it quickly or throw it out...the moldy stuff smells really bad fast) and shaping or twisting the pieces according to what I want. You can do quite a lot with it in various stages of dryness, so have fun with that. You want to wait until it is not sticky, but not too stiff either. Once it is completely dry, you can still bend it sometimes, or you can get it slightly wet to manipulate it.

Gelatin that doesn't come out the way you want it can be remelted and used again. When I fasten the pieces together I just use melted gelatin and a few tools like little spoons and lab ware. It's a good excuse to buy beakers and things if you have a fascination for lab tools like I do. There's a lot of science involved in gelatin art.

That makes it really fun to do with kids and if you are having a hard time getting into it, I suggest involving a younger person. Having a display for the show is a great goal, but it is also fun to make it to eat (if you can bear to eat it...I can't now) or play with from a child's perspective. For the show, anything goes. You do not have to address the gold theme, or the 30th thing, and people often do political, environmental, or silly statements about their lives. It's free expression at its best. If you are already an artist, try using techniques or materials from your other media.

It's not to early to start. Sometimes I cruise the goodwills for molds, pie plates, or fun items to use as props. It can be a good launch into a concept or idea. And if you like to eat it, there are a ton of great recipes for traditional Jell-O salads and desserts and casseroles and whatevers. The Tacky Food table is a great place to show your creativity and tacky taste...just be safe with that stuff.

Here's a great page if you want to know more about this odd product that is still popular despite the fact that most kids raised in Eugene don't know what it is. There's a lot online. For awhile our show had a lot of traction on the internet but it's a little hard to find with the explosion of those gelatinas. Still, I don't think the Golden Age of Jell-O is over yet. Obviously, in Eugene, it's not over.

The Jell-O Art Universe

Jell-O Art show 2017

So much has been happening in my world of Jell-O Art! To get the apologies out of the way, I see that I never posted my after-the-show post in early April...I composed it in my head, collected the photos, and then launched full-on into my parallel universes of Saturday Market, Oregon Country Fair, and all the rest of the duties that fall into my lap. I owe all the artists who participated a debt, most especially the other Radar Angels who put on such a good performance and gifted us all with so much fun and so many laughs. I do hope to go back and do that story...some precious moments and lots of great photos. But here it is August and even more glorious events have now moved from anticipation to completion. And there is absolutely nothing on the Jell-O Art horizon unless I decide to add some into the Kim Still Day at Saturday Market (August 26th) or some other deal. I might bring some down to put on that dreadful chain-linked construction site on the West Block, or maybe not. If you are a yarn-bomber, please organize your network to decorate that new deck...we market people need to make it our own somehow, and art is always our way.

And on the subject, while I'm at it, is it just me, or does the term "arts and crafts" ring dissonantly in your ears, fellow craftspeople? Do you share my distaste for being seen as a "vendor" in a "stall"? I'm channeling our champion of old, Gil Harrison, when I say call us artists, artisans, call us crafters if you must, but please focus on our highest aims, not our commonest? I do not vend. I bring my inspired creations to display for public acclaim and make myself completely vulnerable with the goal of appreciation of my efforts and those of my membership. Selling my wares is a tiny part. Self-expression, creating beauty in our daily lives, sharing wonder and delight, furthering the accomplishments of master craftspeople, creating community: so many other goals are in my mind when I pedal myself downtown. We create our culture, so let's keep trying to elevate it. Arts and crafts is what they do at the kids table. We are a gem on the Park Blocks, a precious and fragile brief occurrence of the moment, different every time, a day that cannot be replicated. I don't want that to be reduced.

Sunday Streets booth

But I did attempt to "vend" at Sunday Streets, in half my booth, while in the other half I brought my best, most delicate and unbelievable gelatin art sculptures, and I'm guessing you missed it. Here you are, a blurred and shadowed facsimile of a display you will probably not get another chance to see. Next April Fools, (probably March 31st, 2018) we will put on our 30th Jell-O Art Show! I brought a bit of a retrospective downtown and in the parade, with the great help of my fellow Radar Angels, and it was a technicolor sight to see!

Ready to go

I always feel like I have to explain the Jell-O Art, but very simply, the gelatin I make (which is air-dried, glued with gelatin pieces made into actual sculpture with meaning and wonder) is an art metaphor as well as being actually art. It's the purest art I do, much less productive than screenprinting and much less consumable (though I have fascinators for sale for the brave and glamorous.) It is technically edible, yes. It is a medium for self-expression and it is the medium that allowed me to be a real artist. We put on our aprons and bring Jell-O out of the kitchen, show how accessible and easy (just add water) art-making can be, and we promote outsider, non-credentialed, un-buyable, non-professional ART in it's purest forms. We say everyone can be an artist, put your creation on a pedestal in a real gallery, and put yourself at the same level as every other artist in the land. You can do this when you are five years old with your gramma, and you can do it when you are eighty-five years old from your wheelchair. We do it so you can do it. All of you.

And this Queen thing is the same: you too can be a Queen in your own self-created universe, and sometimes you can get other people to go along with it, too. When I was crowned in 2012 by my fellow Radars and Jell-O Artists, it was a gift, but I earned it with my dedicated application of a creative process to a silly, uncooperative medium and to the way I built an art life around that. I've been in every single Jell-O Art Show and each year I try hard to be original, to test a boundary, to say something meaningful from my inner and external life experience, and I put it out there for everyone else. As ego-free as I can manage.

My coronation, 2012 Jell-O Art Show

Yes, I like a little appreciation for it, and I have certainly embraced this role of being the chief promoter and the one who can be depended on to dress up, knock myself out, and put my whole heart into it for free. I spend a lot to do that, in time and resources, and it makes me very, very satisfied and full. It's the main focus of my whole winter, when Saturday Market is closed, and the Opening Day of Market and the Jell-O Art Show are dual harbingers of the glorious advent of the creative year, the springing forth of another wonderful series of accomplishments and shared community elevation. I don't do it for myself. I do it for my city and my people. And for strangers. Okay, I do get a kick out of it. It's special!

Load Number One

Being in the Parade and having a booth at Sunday Streets was a peak life experience, even though it went down rather quietly and even humbly perhaps. I got up at 5:00 am on a Sunday after working until 1:00 am on my display, bike and float, (and that was after my 14-hour Market day) and rode my goods and sculptures downtown to set up my booth on Oak Street. I dashed back home to costume, build the float, and get to the parade grounds by 10am. I barely made it. We paraded, I stood in the booth from noon to four and talked art to the few strangers who happened by (and a few friends) and then I schlepped it all home again in two big trailer loads on my bike. As far as I know I was the only human-powered "vendor" on the Park blocks, not that anyone noticed except the guy from HPM who took my photo. (Human Powered Machines at CAT made my wonderful bike trailer.)

Float in the "driveway"

But it's no one's job but my own to promote myself and it seems that the harder I do that, the more it puts me into the "crazy lady who must be ignored" category. Friends took photos, but despite my clear signs and careful presentation, I felt invisible. I know, it seems impossible. But here you have the recording of the historic event, which I do not think will be repeated. I do not believe I am the crazy lady. I will fight that to my last breath. I bring you pure and simple joy and it is not really about me. This is something I repeat almost daily: this is not about me. I represent.

As with any gift, its beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so whatever you think, you can take it or leave it. Plenty of people do let me know I am seen (like the woman who told me I was quite beautiful when I wear a tiny cocktail dress and lipstick...apparently at other times I am not.) Plenty of people do get the point of the gelatin...the ephemeral nature of it, the taming of the wild medium that rarely does what you want it to do, the inexpensive accessibility of it, the empowerment of the 50's housewife legacy reversal, all of it. Plenty of people encourage me and would be sad to see it end, and I am committed for life to my Radar Angels in whatever form we take. Jell-O Art made me an artist. I can't quit it, but I might take my light back under that bushel for awhile. Until the winter anyway.

But here you can see that we paraded our 30 years right down Broadway, that we were stupendously glorious and talented and determined (despite being drowned out by the boombox behind us) and that we did represent, amazingly, unselfishly, and in full color. I was so over-excited by it all that I went into my usual persona-state that is not really me, not too grounded in daily reality, but in that exalted space of bigger-than-life that attracts most performers, so if I didn't see you in the crowd, or didn't thank you for your cheers and stole your photos without attribution, I'm giving you a lame excuse here. It was a big deal on my day off on July 30th, 2017.

Radar Angels! 30 years of the Jell-O Art Show!

I don't know if I've ever been more exhausted than I was that night when it was all finally stowed away at home again. I don't know if my feelings are always this mixed...I suppose reading back in all my after-show posts the same ambivalence would come through. It's hard to make yourself vulnerable time after time, for me twice a week all season, with the big explosions of Fair and  Jell-O Art Show, it's confusing and draining and exhilarating and gorgeous, and I'm the luckiest person in the world and also maybe the least-confident Queen in the Realms, (though guessing the Slug Queens might include a few on that level).

And yes, we got some recognition at the Coronation of Babosita of the lime-green embroidery. She had to work pretty hard too for those cheers and accolades. I had a bit of Jell-o-sy going when that Knight got all the attention for

driving down from Portland, but I love him too so I will get that put away soon (though it was sexist, just sayin'). I don't have to have all the attention. It is not about me (repeat a few more times.) I am the dependable, put in the thirty years, put on the lipstick (don't do it without a mirror ever again, Queenie) and the fancy dress, get yourself downtown, knock yourself out, and then get up the next day and do it again. I do get my rewards. I'm not complaining.

It's just that I have to write about every little aspect so we can all appreciate ourselves that much more. David has paid his dues on the vulnerability scale. He was glorious. We just had to sit there and heckle, too, not get up and sing and dance and get voted on. We don't have to be evaluated and scored, thank the goddesses. We're the luckiest royalty of all. Talk about no rules. So I certainly don't fault him in making the most of his (mere) 20 years.

In the Realm of  Gelatinaceae, there is only one rule: put your whole, honest and true heart into it. Get up and add the water. Throw it on the compost of society's evaluative critical system and mix it up again. We didn't win the cash in the parade. (We did get runner up though.) I didn't draw the crowds to my once-in-a-lifetime downtown "stall" number +25. I didn't get in the paper and didn't get on TV. Their loss. A loss to our fair city. There were people who didn't even know there was a parade.

only photo I could find of me

But I know I am there in the culture of our town, the real culture that brings us our weird and wonderful and solidifies our quirk. I definitely bring the quirky. And I really do it for you. All of you. And really, I do know you appreciate it. We all need it, now more than ever. Joy is what makes everything else worthwhile.

Plus after all these years, what would I do without it? Watch TV? Write my book? Oh yeah, I might write my book(s). They need to be written. Perhaps that will be my display for the 30th. No one else can write it, after all, the Book of Jell-O Art. The book of the intersection of serious play, real creativity, pure bliss and out-of-time transcendence. Someone could write their version. But the book I would write, should write, might write, that would be all about me. The trick would be to bury that in there so that you couldn't tell. You'd think you got a piece of it, anyway, you could fall into my story and think it was the real story, but of course the minute I finished it, the story would keep going and become another story. So here's your taste, here's the short version from August 2017.

There will be other chapters. A sequel. Or not. We'll see. In the meantime, if you have one of my art pieces, dust it off and think about the value of something you probably got for free. Go find something else at Market and pay the artist for it, and take your place in this grand universe. It can't really happen without you. And do remember how grateful I am, how humbly I thank you for your support. There is no Queen without her public. It's really all about you.

And me.

Show Week: Half over!

Crunch time. My sculpture is not finished yet, and this is as late as I have ever been since I started doing the dried gelatin pieces. It's almost too late, but I have lots of parts and a pretty clear vision of what I want, so it's a matter of getting it glued together and dried so it can go into its bell jar and then make it to the show intact.

I may have to take a repair kit, as it is a long way across town. Not a few pieces have failed to survive getting from kitchen to gallery, as many legends will tell. Someone should collect tales about the Jell-O Art Show, before we completely forget our history. Maybe next year for our 30th show we should do that! I'll put it on my list.

My Jell-O Art Show list is long, full of details about things I need to remember for that concentrated day. One year I got halfway there without my costumes...so that's one aspect. I have three Queen costumes planned for this year, with accessories to swap out and strict timing requirements. When the show itself opens at 5:00, I will have been there for many hours setting up the stage, props, staging details, my t-shirt table, the many headpieces I will bring in case someone wants to own one ($25) and display for those. Sometimes I bring an archival piece or two but probably not this year, since somehow I have to fit a throne into my car. 

Quickly, since many of you are working on pieces or still planning to, I will remind you of a couple of pro tips. It helps to make your Jell-O stronger than the package directions for any kind of stability in your piece, and to keep it from melting at room temperature. Any extra amount of clear gelatin (like Knox) will help. Those little packets have about a quarter ounce in them I think, so you will need a lot of them to make a difference, plus you can decrease the amount of water to help. If you are using Jell-O brand, you have a lot of chemicals and sugar in there too, which you don't need, since you are presumably not going to eat your sculpture. I buy plain gelatin powder online in bulk to make mine, adding only dye, but some artists believe that the sugar in Jell-O brand helps add strength. I use up to 3 ounces of powdered gelatin per cup of water, but you may not need that much.

The other thing is to know that gelatin has to absorb water a little (called "blooming") before it is ready to get to a liquid state. Mix it up in cold water, even though the package directions on the edible kind say to use hot first. Use hot first if you are not adding any extra gelatin, but if you are, let it bloom in the cold water for about ten minutes and then melt the whole mess. I use the microwave but you can do it on the stovetop as well. Stir it a lot. Get all the graininess dissolved and then skim off any foam that forms on top. 

Molds are best for quick work and if you make it strong enough you can pry the pieces out of the mold with your fingers, or try the slight melting technique of sitting the mold in hot water for a few seconds. You can glue broken pieces with molten gelatin but it's best if you plan for intact pieces with few seams, as the pieces tend to separate along their natural lines of formation. Anything can be used as a mold, but flexible plastic might be the best. Scour the goodwills for odd things to use as molds. I've found tons of old molds too, as people don't tend to value them as they used to. You can use glass and harder containers but be warned that gelatin is strong and can chip glass by pulling it that hard. It's truly amazing.

You can also use anything for color, including food coloring, dye, or candy ingredients. Be creative. This is supposed to be fun. As far as making a statement goes, I like to do that, but I don't always connect with the theme. So far my piece does not connect with fools, but it could by the time I finish, and be reflected in the title. Strange artisty things happen when I work on art...my mind flows in directions unknown and sometimes unarticulated. We'll see!

I finished the shirts on Friday and am still working on a few props, plus still learning lines and songs for the performance. I must say this Queen position has been an opening to so many levels of  the Jell-O Art Show that I did not appreciate in the same way before I was crowned. I've always done the art and shirts and promoted the event, but now I have a kind of maternal or benevolent view of the happening. I feel responsible, and the pressure to be clever has been hard on me. 

Those Slug Queens use more glitter than I do

Being able to act from a persona is very helpful, though. I do what the Queen of Jell-O Art wants to do, speak like she would speak, guide like she would guide, and try to empower my public and my fellow artists. She's not autocratic or demanding, unless that furthers the fun of the narrative, and she is a very human queen. She wants to be loved (from a distance) and wants to serve well. She needs no King and never will, in fact she resists power even while trying to use hers for the forces of good. It's a position that is open to interpretation but at the same time somewhat circumscribed in that many things are expected of her. 

This is a Knight of my realm, being far too resplendent.

I do find that when I rise to those expectations through her, the results are generally pleasing. I got to receive an award for the Radar Angels from the Mayor last year. I get to be as royal as I please as long as I ignore those who don't take the whole thing seriously. And I also get the option of not taking the whole thing too seriously!

And it is supposed to be fun! Repeat that when you have gelatin all over your kitchen and your piece keeps slipping away from you. If  Jell-O makes you her fool this year, no matter. It will be over quickly, and you will get another chance next year to be in similar straits. Don't worry about it. Bring your failure and put it on a pedestal, and you will find it looks a lot more successful in context. Art is not supposed to be perfect, it's supposed to be creative. Do your best to open your synapses and let your brain tell your hands and eyes what it sees. 

Here's your chance to do real art,to take it to any level you like. It's all up to you. I will love it no matter what. So when you see an old lady in a funny outfit come to ask you about your piece and your artistic process, don't be afraid. I am not going to make a fool of you, although you are welcome to that option. And don't mistake me for one of those other slimy Queens, the Slug Queens, though there will be several of them there trying to be important in a realm that is clearly that of Queen Gelatinaceae of the Jell-O Art. 

Just kidding, they're not slimy. I am truly grateful to those who show up, costumed in style, to honor our show.  If there were not Slug Queens setting a graceful example, I would not have my own position, very likely, and wouldn't know what to do with it. And anyone who goes around in lime green and chartreuse gets accolades from me. I am lucky in that I get all the Jell-O colors, which I interpret to be all the colors. My slime comes in a rainbow.

We will see what our designated Slug Queen representative, Sitara Slugshine, brings for our delight. She will appear around six to give her Benediction, so come early. It's also best to see the pieces if you come early. At 7:00 when the Radar Angels perform, it is a bit hard to see the art, and at 8:00, the big trash cans come out and everything gets put away. So see you there!