Jell-O Art Doings

Piece I donated to the permanent collection

I've gotten over my bitterness about Eugene developments and no longer want to lance anyone in the show, which is good because we will definitely not have those emotions in those short three hours, which are all about colorful fun and sweet indulgences. The Radar Angels met for the first brainstorm session and got very close to deciding the theme and rough outline for the performance part. You'll hear it here as soon as we actually agree on something.

The trick with the theme is to choose a word or phrase broad enough to inspire lots of interpretations in Jell-O Art, but also something cute and funny and memorable and pronounceable and also something that hasn't been used before. We got some great ideas and lots of fairly good ones, and as always a few we will not choose in any year most likely. (cough cough Fifty Shades of Jell-O) There are some things that won't be funny, like Bill Cosby. Fortunately he was included in an earlier performance, back when he was still loveable, so we can ignore him now. Nobody ate pudding pops anyway.

Kesey may or may not appear. He's in the news now and in fact today's paper showed a giant mural of him as part of a projected development on what is called Kesey Plaza, which made me laugh. To those who met him and know Pranksters, he was not quite the hero that outsiders think. He's respected, but we have stories...I'd love to tell them and will someday, but the Jell-O Show is not the place for it. That battle for the space is heating up and will be fought politely at the City Council but while I oppose the development, I'm not at all sure it isn't already a done deal. Another blog in another place, though. It would still be fun to have him appear in some form and we might just do that.

I did start making Jell-O and thinking about my piece and writing down crazy ideas in preparation. I've resisted going full-on which means taking over the livingroom with art, but it will happen soon. Reminds me my sewing machine needs a tune-up too. We're having a little harmony workshop today to elevate our singing skills and learn a little about singing in a group. It's a challenge sometimes to find angels who can sing, dance, dress up, and still do art as well. I'll keep leaning on these new people to try making some Jell-O. To me it can't be separated from acting in the show...but then again, I've been making the Jell-O far longer than participating in the performance.

Prop from 2015's performance

So quickly, in case you are new to Jell-O Art, it's a three hour show, April 2, from 5-8 pm. Entering is simple, you bring your piece to MKAC earlier that day and pay a couple of bucks to register it. You put it on a pedestal, give it a title, and then hope someone takes your picture standing next to it to put in some obscure blog or newspaper article. You try to have as much fun as possible stretching your art wings while doing something silly in a serious way. I suppose you don't have to be serious at all, but the medium is a little demanding so you could probably use some pointers. I will be writing here with lots of details of my art as I go, although the performance is more-or-less secret so I'll just be giving tantalizing hints about that.

I work primarily in dried gelatin, but even if you make the jiggly kind there are a couple of things that will make your explorations easier. I just use pure gelatin, like the Knox kind although I buy it in bulk. It's not cheap but way less expensive than the boxes. If you mix it strong, with less water, it will be more firm and won't need to be refrigerated to keep its shape. Mix it in cold water first, let it bloom for at least ten minutes, and then melt it either in the microwave or on the stove top. If you mix it in hot water you get lumps which you will have to remove, and it's much harder work. That took me at least fifteen years to discover, even though that is how the package tells you to do it. I thought that was to dissolve the sugar, and I don't use any, but it's to let the gelatin absorb water, which it does slowly at first. So, start with cold.

Great piece from 2015 by Kari Berg

I use pyrex and canning jars as a burst jar is dangerous and extremely messy. Hot gelatin sticks to everything and in fact that is the glue I use to put my components together. I use dye that I have from dyeing projects but you can use many things to color your Jell-O. If you like the traditional colors you can still use part prepared Jell-O if you want. It's hard to duplicate some of those colors, like the Berry Blue, and sometimes those are important to your piece. The four little bottles of food coloring are cute but mostly a waste of your money if you plan anything substantial. I still use them sometimes but if you aren't going to eat it you don't need to use food coloring. Cake decorating and candy making supplies have lots of Jell-O Art uses, and plastic molds are the easiest way to go for shapes. You can use any kind of thing for molds but sometimes the gelatin sticks. I've heard of using vegetable oil as a release but if you make the stuff thick enough it is like rubber and you can pry it out of the mold if you do it carefully. Sometimes you will have to remelt it and start over, so be prepared to operate within the limits of the medium.

Over the years people have tried a huge number of techniques and you'd be surprised what has appeared. Every show is different and I am usually pleasantly surprised. A good theme will provide so much latitude that artists think of references that speak to them and of course it is always the case that you don't have to work to the theme at all. Many don't, especially artists like David Gibbs who do it all year round. Do what is fun. That is the first rule, that you have to amuse yourself.

David Gibbs will be entering for his 20th year

And don't forget to think about the Tacky Food Buffet. If you do like to eat it, or other related food-like substances like Cheez-Whiz and Kool-Whip, and Spam, they can be served on the Buffet table to delight everyone. There is seldom anything left over although real food appears rarely and is quickly eaten unless it is far too weird. In today's foodie world some of what we thought weird doesn't seem so now. Chocolate-covered Brussels sprouts are a good example of this...tasted fine. The sushi made with gelatin inside was pretty edible and not that far-fetched. The Buffet is a real crowd-pleaser and the kids go wild with all those things their parents cringe and try to limit consumption of. Feel free to bring your favorite junk food if you don't have a clean enough kitchen to risk preparing anything. It all has to be legally edible.

You can message me on  Facebook with your questions, and put any of your ideas there on my page too if you like. I created the Gelatinaceae page for my Jell-O Art although it is also my business page so there will be other stuff there as well.

I just created an event page on Facebook as well. If you can't post things there send them to me and I will make sure they get posted. You can still find previous events if you search and there are often many photos and interesting side articles about the art and science of our most beloved medium. Okay, like feelings about the icon Bill Cosby, we have mixed feelings about the "beloved" part, but we couldn't do it without the Jell-O product, even though kids in Eugene have never heard of it in the same sentence as food. That's okay! We don't need heroes, and we don't need purity. Everything goes in the world of Jell-O Art, everything fun and quirky and silly and colorful and shiny and resplendent and glorious, that is. No hating or trumpery allowed. Save the date!

Getting Close to Theme Time

I was a little over-excited when I wrote the last post. I stay in my bubble too much and when I go out and see people doing big things that scare me, I get far too anxious and forget the big picture. No one is ever out to get me and in fact has barely noticed me, so it's really not about me, those big things. I can have a little voice. Mostly I just need to find ways to work around the big things and use them as fuel for my art and passions, which is kind of what I was doing.

The Radar Angels are meeting next week to talk theme and get started on planning the performance. It's my job as Queen to remind them that it is first the Jell-O Art Show, which is central to the event and can't be overlooked as we get so excited about the performance. We tend to veer wildly off any set course as we develop the show, so I have to expect some chaos and not get too flustered by it. 

But getting together with a bunch of creative people is very juicy. I expect to laugh a lot and that very few of my ideas will go anywhere...but there will be plenty more opportunities to have more ideas. 

My fantasies have been all over the place about what will be current enough in April to still be funny, but won't be settled and out of mind by then. The developments downtown will really need to be a part of it somehow, but one thing we really try to do is find the good and beautiful in what we satirize, so it might be tricky. I have a fantasy about asking our Mayor Kitty to play herself (or someone else even) in our show. When she gave the Angels our award on the 4th of July, I completely missed the chance to get her to wear Jell-O, which I think she might enjoy. 

Obviously the 4th of July. Mayor on the right.

I was thinking of having our characters be Eugene stereotypes so we could tell some broad Eugene story without lampooning actual people. There are plenty of candidates for such stereotypes from the travelers to the millenials to the developers but above all we must be kind, so I was thinking that they might all say the same thing in different words. Really it does all boil down to "I love Eugene, and this is the way I love it." Everybody sees the nouns in a little different light, and works the verbs in sometimes wildly different actions. So this might be a solid base to start from. But I am really just exercising my own exploratory thinking here as in the three years I have been involved in working on the performance, I have been surprised at just about every meeting at how many and how creatively the ideas flow. True brainstorming happens where one idea turns into another and there is almost no such thing as a final result. 

The stage is set

The Jell-O Art Show itself is always a joy as new people and experienced people bring their sculptures and interactive pieces and interpretations of theme and just jell. The take a concept and Jell-O-ize it. True art ensues and true artists are born. I would be dismayed if no kids came with legos floating in pools of Berry Blue. I would be surprised if some of the regulars skipped the show. It's like the advent of spring to my artistic life, with just the right amount of silly amidst a lot of serious effort. 


I love getting the costumes and props together and look forward to the singing and whatever choreography we manage to fit on the stage. In last year's show we had some elements that were supremely hilarious and really the first rule is that we amuse ourselves, so if we forego something serious like Kesey Plaza and just do something purely joyful that will be fine. We don't really need to mourn anyone though a few Bowie songs might be so useful as illustrations. We rarely sing the original words, but we can do a lot with Under Pressure and Let's Dance without a lot of changing. Maybe we'll end up on the moon. Maybe we have to talk Harry Potter or some superhero. We may or may not interface the ideas from Jell-O with those more suited to Country Fair. 

We have a Slug Queen this year who is a regular member of our crew, so we might have to use him in some important way. We still have an Old Queen or two we could draw on, and of course my regal presence is required and available. I was thinking of some kind of battle of the Queens but since that is the opposite of our actual interactions, it might be funnier to change the battle paradigm completely to illustrate the challenges of cooperation instead. In simple terms, how do we all make a bowl of Jell-O? There isn't really one right way. That might be fertile metaphor territory. 

So watch this space, all of you who love the Jell-O Art Universe. I'll keep giving you hints about what we are doing and will definitely post the theme as soon as we choose one. If you have any ideas, we're looking for a phrase we haven't used, one that can be interpreted widely for all of the artists, one that conveys some of the joy of the event and the medium, and if it makes a pun or alludes to something mysterious, all the better.

You can't really have too many ideas. They all get stirred together and more emerge anyway, so don't fight it. If it isn't right it won't get wings, so don't be attached, but let your imagination run. Pleasure might follow.

Why I Do It

Boy do I need Jell-O Art right now. The downtown developers just played their cards today and revealed their plans...they want to talk everyone into remodeling the Park Blocks in order to get to trash Kesey and put their shiny building on the town center. I was puzzled at the City Council meeting, but now I feel like a chump. I don't think all the City Councilors knew the plan, so some of them are chumps too. The manipulators are laughing and making their big money plans.

I doubt I can do a thing about it. I'm glad I feel like I saw through their thinly veiled machinations, but it won't change the outcome and they'll soon play me again. I feel like I did when my teenage son told me I really ought to read Machiavelli because I was never going to win a power struggle with him if I didn't. And I didn't, I just figured out a way to stop having the power struggles. I changed the game. I told him I had only one rule that he had to agree to: we both had to be honest.

So we learned to be honest and he grew up and is a good and honest man, and I had a little bubble of life where at least two people were honest. I think that's what I love so much about craftspeople and my world with them, that generally they are honest. It comes with the territory when you work with your hands and heart. Turning raw materials into beauty by using your imagination is just a straightforward, true and lovely reality that has given us a wonderful place and time to thrive. We don't lie much and we don't manipulate much. The people that do don't fit and they don't last long.

But outside our bubble we sometimes get to feel like chumps, because the worlds of power and politics don't run on honesty. They spit on it. They lie while looking you right in the eye, using their powers for their own gain at whatever it costs. They don't care what it costs. They are takers.

So I have Jell-O Art in my bubble. My honest artist friends started this joyful party and we've kept it hopping for twenty-eight years. You take a product that is pure artifice, a pretty shiny jiggly concoction of chemicals that represents the worst fake food ever, and you transform it completely into something meaningful and right. Something deeply expressive, something from your pure imagination and curiosity that you put on a pedestal and worship.

For only three hours on a day when you might rather be with your family of crafters (it will be Opening Day of the Saturday Market but I'll be at the Jell-O Art Show, sigh...) I'll be high on gelatin. I'll be wearing costumes and singing and talking to artists about their seriously silly art, and I'll be the Queen of that transparent Berry Blue and Cherry Red Realm. It will be grand despite the sacrifice of one of my other favorite and seriously fun days.

And in the intervening months between tonight and April 2nd, I will be a Jell-O Artist. I'm starting tomorrow. I already made the first batch, so I'll pour it in the dishes and start the pieces of whatever will be my art for 2016. I'll take my angst about the Park Blocks Pawn Job and my grief at this latest chumping of Poor Little Gullible Eugene and I'll use Kesey and the Pranksters to inspire me. I'll ride my personal Furthur into my personal world of Art with a capital A and I will heal this hurt these Princes are going to deal out. I will heal this bitterness with the sickeningly sweet substance that dries to a tough, gorgeous and ever-lasting beautiful orchid or rose or bird or whatever my heart desires.



They can't have my heart and soul. They can take my Park and tear it up and ruin my income for the season and they can kick me out of my space and do lots of things I fear they might, but I am a Jell-O Artist and I have my tools to fight them and save myself. Really they can't touch anything important and maybe that is what makes them so bankrupt in their suits. Fuck them and put them in a joke. This ought to be a great Jell-O Show. I can hardly wait. We meet on Monday night to pick the theme and rough out our ideas for the performance. I think we might be inspired. I know we will skewer someone, if only in one of those quick jokes you might not get. We'll see. If the mood I'm in right now holds and I can get anyone to go along with me, some people are going to be sorry they messed with the awesome power of Jell-O Art.

Or not. At least there will be Jell-O on a pedestal, and that's enough.

Beginning of Winter

These are our Mod outfits for the Lennon show

What's been happening in Jell-O Art Land? I missed the Salon show. The intake was on Saturday and the weather was iffy so I gave up the notion of hauling it down from Market to the gallery and abandoned the idea of putting it in the show. I had a couple of pieces to sell, but gave one to a friend and now I'm thinking to give a couple to the silent auction portion of the Queen's Ball instead. To get that moving I made new Jell-O but without the heat on some of it got moldy and I lost my momentum.

I'm a fucking wedding cake, okay?

I wore some to Market for Halloween, despite the rain, but it was a wimpy costume and I knew it. I had a bad attitude all week about a costume. It used to be so fun to drag out boxes of fabric and old clothes and put together something meaningful but somewhere along the way I lost the energy for that. Mostly the problem is that a rainy day with a bike cart is about as hard a Market day as anyone wants to do, so adding in some nice and ruinable costume is too much. Maybe it is also because performing with the Radar Angels uses up a lot of costume energy. We sang with the Slug Queen for the Lennon Birthday show and although it was a quick 12 minutes that went by in a blur, fun was had. I put together a kind of a Twiggy outfit, a short a-line dress in a black and white fabric that looked vaguely Mod. I sewed a minimally finished thing and had simple accessories and a cool turquoise Jell-O. The show was a Saturday night and we were supposed to be there about the time I usually get finished unloading so I hurried up and Indi gave me a ride and we made it in time. Not in time for a sound check, and the show started an hour earlier than expected, but it all went well and dancing was a blast. Dancing to the Beatles was an effortless way to return to some of the good feelings of my twenties and that was an unexpected joy. I suppose the beer helped. Anyway, success and the singing was great. I'm gradually learning that if I push myself to show up it is always worth the effort.

So next is the Queen's Third Ball, when Markalo Parkalo tries to raise some money for LILA, the nonprofit he heads. Radar Angels are on the bill and we will sing with him for quite a few songs. We'll do Across the Universe and Can't Buy Me Love from the Lennon Show, plus some Radar classics like Stayin' Alive and Come Go With Me and a few new ones. I'll dress as the Queen of Jell-O Art because I can and it is a ball, and I have another new Jell-O that I haven't even worn yet.This show is on a Friday night, even worse for me as it is the last outdoor Saturday Market the next day and that will take a lot of energy I won't have if I don't get home and to bed by ten the night of the Ball. It will be hard to leave but I will have to.

I've told a few people to come here to look for Jell-O Art information but that is well-buried now in all of the posts from earlier in the year. Look for the ones in March for technical help on your Jell-O. Someone asked me about gummy worms made from Jell-O for Hallowe'en and I probably gave her bad information about the stiffness as she wanted more jiggle, but like any media you do have to work with it awhile to get the magical results in a dependable timeline. It's magic but you have to give it time.

The singing is fun but I don't think my performing angel activities are going to be that extensive. I don't think I can do the ten minutes of the Wowathon as it is on one of the mid-December weekends when Holiday Market is all I can keep up with. I know I would enjoy hearing the stories of 40 years ago but really I will enjoy more having some peace and quiet at home. Setting up and taking down that show every weekend takes some hard hours (at least six) and the 16 hours of selling is like a full week to me. I suppose we adjust to the demands of whatever we are doing but I know that if I push myself during that time some seam is ripped in some part of the fabric and some payment is exacted. Christmas already has a lot of potential to cause distress as most people know. There can be too much caring sometimes. I'm kind of getting used to being in the spotlight on a stage but it still brings a lot of unexpected stress.

I'm feeling that today. I really don't care about the Jell-O in my living room calling for my day's attention. I'll have to make myself sit down to it. I know it is fun when I get into the flow of creation and make it go from pieces to art, but that doesn't translate to always excited to begin. However, Sunday is the day off in which these activities are supposed to fit, so it will have to happen, at least some step of it. Maybe I'll just throw the molding pieces on the compost and call it good. I already spent that extra hour we got today and now it is going to get dark long before I want it to. Winter is not my favorite season. I guess that is one reason I have Jell-O Art though...it cheers up the darker days.

Jell-O Season Never Ends

I thought Jell-O Art Season was over in April but this year it just has no end. I ended up loving the Fourth of July event and am so happy I didn't miss it in my short-sightedness. Here's another photo of me and one of three of the many Angels who were in attendance that night (with Joanie and Angela).

I was going to edit out the guy in the undershirt but then noticed the one behind him...one of many people who took the opportunity to wear the colors. He was too cute. The thing I am holding is my hanky, which was my ironic comment on my own patriotism. I had planned to blow my nose on it onstage in the style of Frank Zappa or someone, but of course forgot and it remained a silly aspect of my costume. I borrowed most of that stuff from Ron Pike who has a suitcase of ironic patriotism. 

The Slug Queen Coronation came and went rather quickly, and I had new Jell-O to wear and another costume variation. I wrote about it in my other blog, Divine Tension, here. The Jell-O I had on my head came from a group of headpieces I made from the wedding Jell-O I took to Australia and back. Some of that was thrown away by the caterers, but I took way more than I needed so made groupings of it. I've decided to put them in the upcoming New Zone Show, the Salon du Peuple, otherwise always known as the Refusee show as it originally was a show for those refused entry into the Mayor's Art Show. The Mayor's Show continues but I haven't tried to put Jell-O Art in it for awhile. I might someday. The best piece I think I ever made is the book from 2012, but although that may have been a peak it may not have been my masterpiece. That remains to be seen.

Anyway I love these new ones so much. Flowers are so perfect for the medium that I hope I will always have an array. I hate to let go of them but think I will let some be sold in the New Zone show. I only get 65% (if they sell) but it will spur me to make more. I recently sent a piece, the last floating piece from my son's wedding, to my sister as mourning Jell-O. She lost her husband and the somber colors of this piece lend themselves to the occasion (and I checked it out with her, so it isn't just an enormously inappropriate gesture...). Guess I don't have a photo of it, sadly, but here is the wedding Jell-O from this spring. The sizes vary and they are all on headbands, but I'm not ready to sell any of this stuff yet.I have some other pieces and since I have another month I might make a few more.

It isn't my usual gaudy colors as I tried to stick to her colors of champagne, dark blue, moss green and a touch of burgundy. I couldn't really restrict myself to that.

The stuff in the jar shown here is a piece I recently did for my friend Pamela's birthday. I was going to make her a crown but it seemed that the half hour she would have worn it at Sweet Life would not have been that satisfying (for me, anyway) so I put it in this jar I had. It did use some of the Australian flowers, with a commercially made hummingbird crown I liked.

Putting it in jars makes it doubly hard to photograph but it won't need dusting so that should make it more valuable to the owners. Of course I know that someday they will no doubt throw it away but it does please me to think of it sitting on their shelves for however long it does that. Wonder when it will start appearing at garage sales or Goodwill? My opinion is that they should save it for the Jell-O Art Museum and feel free to donate it whenever they tire of it. Let my son be the one to throw it away or better still, when I am dying we will have a ritual of throwing it all on the water where it will slowly melt and sink as the remains of a beautiful art life. Yes! I will make that happen. Someone can film it and it will be Chihuly-like. Okay, you read it here first. Remind me when the time comes, or do it after I go. Make some special stuff with my ashes in it.

Enough morbidity. I made a piece for our Slug Queen, Markalo Parkalo, in his signature color of purple. It is, to be honest, recycled pieces I had sitting around from the son's wedding and the year I made a lot of slugs, but it worked for him and he was thrilled. He is going to have a lot of costumes like all great Queens and it should look great on his head. Here it is.

He says he will light it up with el-wire which should be very cool. I always like to photograph it in sunlight so the reflections show around it as extra ruffles and dimensions, as one of the most delightful aspects of it is the transparency. His isn't all that transparent so the light should help people see the nuances.

More to say, but this is pretty long and my weekly call with Mom is about to happen. The Jell-O Art year is full already and we still have months to go! Let's see if we can keep up.

Honored!

Last night the Radar Angels and the Queen of Jell-O Art got to stand on the stage of Art and the Vineyard and receive the Community Partner of the year award from Maude Kerns Art Center, handed to me by the Mayor of Eugene, Kitty Piercy! Then we sang "Come Go With Me" and Kitty sang too. A big thanks to Marty Chilla for making that happen and for all the people who pretended it was okay that I flubbed the lyrics. I knew when Kitty handed me that mic I was in trouble. I did not go to any of the rehearsals! Too busy. Good thing I have such a loving public and a stunning crown.

I totally missed the opportunity to have the mayor put on some Jell-O; just forgot to take any in my haste to get there after my Saturday Market day. My costume turned out terrific I must say, well worth the $21.50 I spent on Thursday to get the basic items. Ron Pike's suitcase full of red, white and blue gear really worked for me. I wonder if he would sell me the red net tutu.

The Radar Angels are an amazing group to be a member of. We few old traditionals have been doing this together since the late-70's, and incredible lifetime of friendship and art. Lots of people who don't really participate in the performing or Jell-O Art are still members and occasionally admit to it. We have all kinds of us, all gender combinations and some new kids and people who have wanted to be members for years and just found out how easy it can be.

The art is the driving force, but the support for each other and the caring community of us is the content that really keeps us going. It's mostly Indi, of course, so persistent and so steady, always inviting and complimenting and carrying the honesty and heart. I most certainly would not be there or maybe even an artist without her. I'll stop there because there are many people to thank, old and young, and I have too much work to do.

I know there were some photos taken of me in that costume which may never reappear in its entirety so I will come back and post one if I get one in the next couple of days. I am off to the Mall of the Woods and have a ton of things to organize and make happen before then, but I did want to remark upon our luck and our joy at being awarded this honor. Thank you to Maude Kerns staff and volunteers and thank you to the best Eugene Mayor ever. We are happy to serve!

It was pretty cute when that southern Slug Queen tried to grab my award. I hope I didn't hurt her when I pushed her out of the way. Mwah!

Jell-O Art Review

Last year I never got around to posting photos of the Jell-O Art Show, in my exhaustion after the event. This year I was so much more relaxed for some reason. I got all set up to sell shirts and decorated the stage, and was ready to help when artists starting arriving. They were so darn cute in their excitement that I decided to try to photograph the artists next to their work. I only caught a few, but here they are.

One of the crowd favorites was this interactive piece by James Carwile. The  brain test on Jell-O facts was not all that easy...even your Queen got a few wrong the first time through. The brain lit up when you got the right answer by connecting the clips with the buttons for each question and answer. The piece was well-done and clever and his daughter Piper was happy to tell me about helping him do the wiring. I looked on the back and it was pretty simple all right. Great presentation. He even carefully crafted the little chocolate graduation hats on his peeps.

Piper did her own piece, and her pun on Trident was fun.Their family got the Queen's Love award for not only bringing the two pieces, but wearing Jell-O they had bought in years past, and buying t-shirts for themselves, and their mom. That's right, three generations of Jell-O Artists! You can see Piper wearing her slug as a necklace. She also ate most of a big carton of coolwhip, so maybe her taste is a little questionable, but they looked like a family to watch in the world.

Of course David Gibbs and his husband Jay attended and David did his usual tour-de-force, this time
a carved Devil's Tower landmark made of many many layers in a 5-gallon bucket. Not only that, but he put it on a rotating platform, installed two mirrors behind it with carved layered letters stuck to them, and he held court in the corner elegantly. I wish I had spent more time talking to him. Things apparently went to my head and I handed out many cards, trying to encourage lots of new people to discover Jell-O, pretty much ignoring the old people who already knew about it. It's never easy to get the balance right in the short three hours. But here is David's piece, and he said that next year will be his 20th year, so we ought to give him some kind of award too.

The letters say Close Encounters of the Jell-O Kind, and really they are quite amazing in themselves. I have spent less time than that on my entire piece some years. No, actually, I haven't, but many people have. The mirrors gave a cool dimension and interesting reflections, and he put the trimmings in a bucket for people to play with, which was highly popular. Famous artists were photographed holding them and I know one person who ate one just to prove she could. It was hard as a somewhat resilient rock, but she said it was tasty. David does like to use the sugary kind of Jell-O in his art, so that makes it even more of an accomplishment.

I got a picture of this artist's simple-looking but quite complicated sculpture, missed taking her picture, and only barely caught her at the end to ask her what the white spots were made of. She said they were gelatin made with milk, but they didn't hold their shapes in the assembly. I wonder if she made a full-on octopus or squid and then crammed it into the half-fishbowl? She said she had a hard time getting her hand in to finish it. It was one of the most beautiful pieces in it's simplicity and mystery, and I did get her name, Kari Berg, though she might not want to be that famous. Oh well, if people don't want to be famous artists they should probably not put their art on pedestals in galleries. Here's her piece, titled Homer.

I didn't even notice the green underneath until now. Great use of color and clear filler to make it complete. She showed a photo of it installed in her garden after the show, and it really looked marvelous there. I can't wait to see what she brings next year.

A word about the theme, and a request for proposals: sometimes it is hard to think of a theme with a really broad appeal and also a lot of tie-ins to a show we want to do on stage. This one worked particularly well, partly because of the classic references and the epic subjects of Homer's poem, and partly because the word odyssey includes odd, sea, and a cool spelling. Plus it means a journey. So there was a lot to work with this year, and I personally would like to be reminded of that next year when we start to talk about a theme. We actually already talked about one that might work in lots of dimensions like that, but we were drinking beer at the time so will have to bring it up again sober and see if we still laugh.

People had a satisfying number of different interpretations of the Jell-Odyssey theme. Some were really insistent about the classic references, though others appeared to ignore it completely. Jordan and his friends just made a sculpture, I think, unless I missed the reference. Maybe it was about a journey around our fair state. I asked them what motivated them to make Jell-O and they said just for something fun to do, which was believable as they looked like they enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a carefully constructed  piece. They used spices for texture so the yellow ground looked like dirt and the green parts were full of bay leaves and looked foresty. They put a big pink heart in the Eugene area and the sign used really nice lettering. An excellent effort!

 Ruby here is one of the Radar Angels and was really enthused about making a piece, which she did the night before and the day of the show, so she gets extra points for spontaneity. Her mom gets tons of points for encouragement without control. Pond Life is cute and technical, as the round green things are full of grass and daisies and the chocolate peeps add class. Ruby liked to talk about it and even pinched  pieces of it off and ate them during her explanations. I like the photo of the artist's hand, too. Never finished, always improving. She will be someone to see in future years, we hope, both in the gallery and on the stage. Very original and spunky.

 Holly is famous for her Tacky Foods, as she likes to use real gelatin recipes from old cookbooks and I always enjoy tasting them. She doesn't mind using gross ingredients like this year's, Candied Chicken Gizzards. They tasted better than most chicken gizzards which are really not bad if you don't think about what you are eating. I only ate two, but like all of the Tacky Food they were gone by 8:00.

Her piece was one of the only political statements, Odyssey to 350, which is about the atmosphere and compared humans to slugs I guess in our slow response to disaster. I didn't get a chance to really study it but it was probably full of really clever jokes and she obviously put a lot of thought into it. I missed her friend or partner Gary's display entirely but as usual he brought his very cool collection of glassware and chrome stuff and put Mr. Potato Head in Jell-O with some complex story and scenario as he likes to do. I feel terrible now that I didn't have five minutes for it. I know he took a lot of photos so I should search him out on the internet and see if I could steal some.

I got all my photos of the performance from Radar Angel Nina Kiriki Hoffman, by the way. She captured all of the highlights and not the part where my crown fell off or the  Sirens missing their cue. She had her photos up the next morning and tagged me so they all went straight to my Facebook page and are in my collection now. What a great service to humanity! Everyone must do their part. See if you can drive a little less to let Holly know we were listening, too. I mean really. Just because they had to cancel the Earth Day festival doesn't mean we can slack off and not do any Earth Daying. I know the Earth Hour was happening just as I was driving home from the show with my car full of props, so instead of driving to the after-party I walked over in the dark. Don't worry though, it wasn't a bit of fun so you didn't miss anything. All the fun was in the gallery, thanks to these brave, thoughtful, and eminently creative artists and the others whose photos I failed to get . Hooray for the Jell-O Artists!

Edited to add: if you don't get enough here, check my other blog at http://divinetension.blogspot.com