Performance Video!

 Thanks to CTV, Hedda and John, we have a video of the show! I'm sure they did a review of all the pieces too. Gotta laugh at this though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCzbkK42UlQ

Post-Show Post

 I wish I had the time and energy to do this every year before work takes over, but I'm waiting for my delivery of a pallet of t-shirts, which will indeed take over, so we'll see how much time I get between now and 7 pm when they've said I'll have them. I wish it weren't rainy and projected to be wettest at 1:00 today but it's not something I get a choice about.

 The Jell-O Art Show is a direct result of a lot of my choices but there is also a spontaneity and ridiculous level of chance and chaos which I have learned to live with. I just keep working on it every minute for about two months and hope I meet the deadlines. I hear my mother's voice telling me "You always meet your deadlines..." and that's helpful. I do. I also am getting better at eliminating things that don't work and had to do that quite a bit at our tech rehearsal when my sets were way too large and involved for the 20 or so minutes the performance would take.

So I took a few things home that I had planned to use, which was really not a problem. I hadn't realized how hobbled I would be in the Jell-O box costume, as I could not put my hands together and also couldn't do costume details, like changing out my headpiece and keeping my secrets by not allowing the drapey part to fall off too early, which it did, twice. I always have to deal with my magical thinking and my simple plans that turn out to be difficult. I think most Jell-O artists can relate!

Slug Queen Jubilee Hedonisto represented! She did a wonderful benediction that I hope was recorded, and made a Jell-O piece too.  Old Queen Galaxia's partner brought a piece but both of them, and many other people, couldn't attend the packed show because only a few people masked, which is how it is these days, sadly. Four Slug Queens made a grand entrance and of course we have two in our troupe (Markalo Parkalo and Scarlett) and our own realm with our Knight, and me. 

And our Lady-in-Waiting and Page, Belief. Surprisingly, not a lot of Barbie or barbie costumes, but a couple of pieces. My photographic record was not complete so I missed one first timer who had Barbie in a bathtub. (A small one.) When I tried that my Barbie fell apart and had to have her hear replaced with a fish head so became Fish Head Barbie, but that was a long time ago. I almost brought her. In my little speech I did mention that when I saw the Barbie movie the first time, I was with two of my fellow Jell-O artists, and we were all muttering "Jell-O Show, Jell-O Show" the whole time because everything in it, pretty much, is exactly what we have been saying and satirizing the WHOLE TIME since 1988 when we started the show to lampoon the art world. So way to catch up, Mattel. But Barbie is a natural comment on feminist topics and our origins in the 1950s, so it's an inevitability.

There were quite a few first-time Jell-O artists, young and older, several just kids. One was elusive, and I never saw him to take his photo. I like to take photos with them next to their pieces, up on the pedestals in a real gallery, because that is a significant life moment and should be recorded. They're usually embarrassed but you never know what will fortify someone on their journey in art and I know it was meaningful to me to get that acknowledgement that my art was real.

The Eugene Weekly article undoubtedly generated some extra interest but we do have a regular crowd that knows to show up for us, and they are wonderful. It makes performing easy. Sometimes they take video and we actually had a videographer, but someone didn't notice that the lights on stage were turned off so I heard the quality is poor and we may not get to see it. I don't care so much about the quality. I need to see what everyone else on stage was up to, as I pretty much leave my body when I'm on stage so I fail to notice everything. I concentrate on my lines and cues and didn't mess up too badly. None of us were prepared as much as we hoped to be as the show was a week earlier than usual but we did pretty well. It went by fast and I always choke up on the last lines and songs when I realize it is almost over and won't be repeated! It's so ephemeral. 

The t-shirts went well! There is no longer anything older than 2018 in the "old shirts" collection which I'll keep bringing and adding to each year. Now the new ones are old. Weird Barbie was pretty popular. 

There were two brains, not similar at all...it was fun discussing the technical challenges as usual. Jell-O is not an easy medium to master. I say master in a tongue-in-cheek term as I do not think you can master it as an art form. There's always room for more and different Jell-O.

Quite a few people stumbled into the show intending to see the previous exhibit, which had been taken down, but they were wowed by what they discovered was worth a view.

I especially like it when people admit they had a limited view of Jell-O from what their moms and grandmothers used to serve...those old recipes are awkward and sometimes delicious. I guess there was some edible Jell-O on the Tacky Food table...looked like it might have been appropriately paired with Cool Whip but to be honest, I don't really eat Jell-O. Our Knight brought some edible creations made with agar-agar but I couldn't even really eat those. Didn't want to mess up my purple lipstick anyway.

 I didn't get a photo of him but this is a piece by his friend Angela Bradford. David had one which was essentially a bucket of jiggle on a spinning platform which I hope got the appropriate attention (whatever that would be...)

The last piece I have room for is this one by a new artist who hadn't been to the show before but saw last year's video and made an incredible piece which I didn't photograph well. She tried the erroneous recipe I gave in that Oregonian piece, instead of the recipe I really use, which is 3 oz of gelatin in a cup of water. She used tweezers to set this up, tiny cubes colored with purple cabbage, and it was very intricate and delightful in its artistry. I hope she continues. We had a fun connection.

Her piece also spun around and reflected, in this photo, the piece next to it, the high heels, and me in another photo. She really went all out, which I truly appreciate.

I may get a chance to expand this coverage but in case I don't, stay tuned for next year. We're committed, as far as I know, to the last Saturday in March as usual these days. We like to not compete with the Opening Day of Saturday Market, as that just doesn't work for me. I can't be in two places at once.

Now if I can only get ready for that big event on time. Hoping for good weather. If it's nice, I might even wear some Jell-O. Here are the three headpieces I wore this year as a finishing treat. If anyone has a photo of me as Schmiri, post it on FB! I want to see myself!

Or I can just continue in my delusion that I looked great, not silly at all. Nope, not silly at all.

Set Pieces

 Most of my time this year has been spent on making sets...our plan got a little ambitious but it is just the kind of art I like. I'm using up a lot of my saved materials like cardboard boxes, tissue paper and art papers, but I also bought a lot of art papers as a treat for myself so I could view them as replaceable and not so precious that I am reluctant to use them.

So I had a blast yesterday gluing this up on my sunny sidewalk. I love it. I'm having some issues getting it to stand up but there are still a couple of things I can do to figure that out. 

 You won't see this until the end of the performance, and it will be even more glorious but I thought the few readers who are still following this blog deserved a peek at it. Plus I just want to share my delight. 

 

This is just one of four. It's definitely the most exciting. You might recognize the Jell-O Submarine from last year's performance, which came in handy. I often recycle the props into the next set of props, kind of have to as I have a small house and I hate just throwing them away. The big Jell-O made out of plastic waste is also from a previous show. 

I have two more of the walls completed, but one is not as exciting, and we do kind of like to keep some secrets. I'll show the second one here too, though, because I can, and I'm also happy with it. There was a lot of intuition and discovery as I started with an old window shade from somewhere, and it turned out to be striped in an interesting way with varying widths of stripes, so it made a fascinating collage. Fascinating to me!

As you can see I worked all day and was in the shade at the end, though it was still hot and I am feeling so lucky to have sun for this. They're too big to really work on in the house and might also be too big to even get into a van so that will be the next challenge...how to make them transportable and also easily changed between scenes. I have plans for that...but plans are only plans. I wish this weather would last all week. The last set piece is the most complicated and my mind isn't even wrapped around it all yet. 

I tend to get a pretty complete plan in my mind before I start and then just see what happens. It's so so fun. I needed something this refreshing to balance all the other things I'm working on, which are way less fun.

My Jell-O piece is coming along, but slowly. Am getting less ambitious about that as the days dwindle...a lot to do this week! Tech rehearsal is Friday! The Jell-O Art Show is Saturday! Yikes!

Some Actual Productivity

 I got the shirts made. I had some dyed shirts that I wanted to use up, the purple ones, and I thought I ordered grey to fill in the straight-cut ones, but it is this weird brownish shade, which we are stuck with. Whatever. I had a two-color design in mind, with the split screen of green and pink, but it didn't have enough pizazz so I hand-colored the silver on there. It's OK. I'm almost always less than thrilled with my final products and a lot of these are kind of substandard in print quality too, but again, WHATEVER! 

I'm just happy to have them finished. The show is next weekend and I'm officially pretty anxious, which is normal for me. The key of course is a lot of repetitive practice so that's my plan for the next 10 days. That would be fine if that is all I had to do, but of course there is a lot more.

I have an interview with Emerson Brady of The Weekly tomorrow for which I will attempt to clean my house enough to fit in four people at once, which is only doable if no one wants to sit down. It won't be as extensive as what I had to do last year for the Oregonian...just photos, no video, I think. Guess we'll see. 

My problem with everything is that I can't seem to limit myself to any type of minimalism, in anything. I want to bring in all of the history, the science, the culture...I'm more of an encyclopedia than a dictionary. A novel rather than a short story. A feature film. I have to admit I am a Jell-O Art legend...only laughable if you are not one and can't relate to the importance of the role. 

But it is so fortunate that the layer of silliness is on top, in all of it's silver glitter. You just can't take it all so seriously that you lose perspective. In two weeks it will all be a memory. And, hopefully, some archival materials. 

The t-shirt process did strike me as kind of minimalist, though. I am old school in my techniques, so here is all of the art I had to make. Add squeegees and ink, and it's simple.

I haven't been printing all winter but I managed. I found the rubylith I had stashed for just this occasion and controlled myself on the art...didn't lay on any patterns for more dimension and didn't get too perfectionistic about it. I picked last Friday afternoon which was sunny and warm so I could put the shirts outside to dry and it all went well enough. I hope they sell. 

I often add hand-coloring to my work when it is a special edition like this...it takes time but adds a lot. Jell-O Art Show t-shirts are a fun project every year because I get to do whatever I want and they are part of a collection that goes back a couple of decades. They don't really relate to the theme, most times, or the performance or whatever sculpture I am making. Weird Barbie seemed like the obvious choice. Originally I had planned to feature Ruth Bader Ginsberg...she would be a fun subject, in a way. Anyway, they're history now!

So back to set-making, practicing songs and lines, and trying to make a Jell-O piece. All of it is in progress and looking like it will be finished on time. Now if I didn't have to clean up so much to avoid being humiliated by the interview tomorrow...everything is just a mess. Chaos is my style, apparently, although underneath it is all very well organized.

There's always room...etc.

Failing to Excite

 So much potential having a blog, but I'm just not finding the time and the right energy for writing. Not sure why...having trouble with finding enthusiasm for a lot of things. Mostly I have been making props for the show, which involved figuring out supports for them, as they are big. I finally decided to take some 6-ft. grids with me, since I have plenty and they can stand up well if made in a triangle or other stable free-standing configuration. That means I can maybe just clip my big cardboard "scenes" to the top or sides instead of trying to build on cardboard stands that have to be constructed on the stage as they won't fit in my car. Neither will the grids, so they'll go on top, and if the weather is good, no problem. Might have to make two trips but it is usually astonishing how much I can fit in my car.

I lost momentum yesterday so didn't do a lot but I figured out my costume, which is a big deal, and I started one of the trickier props by making a prototype, which was successful. That was pretty productive for a day when I obviously needed a day off and some space in which I didn't have stress about the fast-approaching deadline of the show.

I actually mixed up some gelatin and got started on a piece, which I can see in my imagination but I have that lovely capability of visualizing, and the disappointment that is built in when my skills don't match my visualization. The good thing about Jell-O as a medium is that you can't really make it do exactly what you want, so you have to relax your control and go with what appears in the process. It is freeing but can also be frustrating. I kind of forgot my formula and mixed my gelatin too weak, so had to start again. I use 3 oz gelatin (dry measure) per cup of water. I put two cups of water in a quart canning jar, add 6 oz of gelatin (8 oz is a cup, so 3/4 cup) and let it sit for about 10 minutes to "bloom" (absorb water), then heat it up in the microwave for like 2 minutes. Stir it in well before letting it sit to bloom. Adding gelatin powder to hot water is a mistake...it clumps up and does not easily dissolve. I had to do that to strengthen what I had made and it was no fun. I did it for like 20 years before I read a bunch of old recipes and realized that only Jell-O brand developed a way to make it work with hot water. Plain gelatin needs cold, just like cornstarch. Old tricks are good tricks.

But I managed and made a few pieces of potentially usable dried components for my piece, which I am imagining made of all dried but might just melt into something else at the end. That kind of excites me because of the risk. I feel like I could pack all of the dried components into the container and then pour in some liquid gelatin, not too hot, and it wouldn't completely melt everything...but it could. So I could ruin it all at the last minute when I would not have time to start over. For some reason that appeals to me...I must need more risk in my life. 

Like I am imagining all of my set pieces falling over. Obviously that is a risk to other people so I don't want to do that, but my plan is complex and I won't be the one handling the sets, as my role is too complicated to work that in. So I have to try to make it kind of foolproof, which means setting it up in the shop where there is room for it, but I need to make the shirts first, as they need that room. I have the shirts, but am procrastinating the design for some reason...well, I know the reason: I really can't draw people. I usually cheat and use a photo degenerated by copying and I maybe should switch to that. Having a person on the shirts makes them sell better, and I have a solid idea...just not the skills to make it good enough. 

I have been having that same problem and feeling since about age 8 which I read is when your visual skills outpace your technical skills and you generally "lose interest" in making art due to that frustration. You know how you want it to look but it is really hard to make it look like that. People forget to tell you that it just takes practice but now we have the internet memes so maybe you do hear that message. Or maybe you just use AI...ack.

I'm sure if I had known at the time to toughen up and practice some skills, I would be a different artist today but I just stopped allowing people to criticize my art and thus got no instruction and minimal development of anything that took too much effort. I kept making art, just did it my way and got used to having things be "good enough." Of course they didn't quite get me over the self-hatred of knowing they actually weren't quite good enough, and I could give you a litany of my failed efforts, but Jell-O saved me from all that because Jell-O Art exists without a critical structure and all Jell-O Art is good, perfect, and exceptional. 

So I hope you are trying to make something or thinking about it and will go ahead and do it. There's no inherent value so just make it and remelt it or throw it away if it doesn't work, or set it aside for later when you get a new idea. Let your brain work on it when you are doing other things. I take a long time with my projects, so my brain can work on them without my direct engagement. I get a lot done while doing dishes or yardwork. I probably should have done the dishes yesterday, since this weather has prevented yardwork for too long. I needed some down time.

But I work for myself, so a Monday is a swing day and I'm not planning to work hard today. I'll do those dishes and fool around and maybe move the set pieces out to the shop anyway, where I can just move them around endlessly to make space. Better out there than in here. I'm  not a hoarder, but I could play one on TV.

Make some magic! Tap into the joys of Jell-O. There's a good reason I've been doing it for 36 years, and only getting sick of it some of the time. There's always room to learn something new.

Oh, Jell-ell-ell-O!

 The Jell-O Art season begins as soon as the year turns after the holiday season, and builds momentum up to the Jell-O Art Show, which we consider the first event of Spring around here. (It's going to be March 23rd, 2024.) It is generally a huge focus of my life, and can push every other thing out of the way. It can be pure fun, or a bigger challenge, but the main goal is to amuse the Jell-O artists and performers, and of course, the community, who are a loyal, local group who like to feel like they are in on a secret. And we like to keep it kind of a secret, the performance at least. The Show is a fundraiser for MKAC and definitely not a secret. Plan to attend! 5-8 pm, so you can still go somewhere to eat or dance. Or home to bed, whatever.

Mostly we keep secrets because the performance is somewhat improvisational up until almost the very end. We don't even wear our costumes to the dress rehearsal unless there are props to manage or we need to see if we can even move in whatever wacky thing we decided to wear. And it's extra fun to surprise the others. Last year Queen Elizabeth just wowed me, with Indi's sense of design and the perfection of her whole shtick. She's kind of my Lucille Ball, or maybe Carol Burnett. She makes me rise to the occasion and really let loose as much as I can for a decrepit old hermit with stage fright.

I rarely actually have stage fright anymore, because the trick of having a persona and a character to play greatly eases any anxiety about undue attention, and really, it's just the Jell-O Art Show, not some serious theatre drama that will make or break my career. It's not my career, and you can't break it, and I know how to make it, Jell-O that is. 

I do take the making of the Jell-O completely seriously. For me it is the essence of myself as an artist, because it's not for making money, it's impossible to control as a medium, and it has taught me what artists know about self-expression. I've written about that a lot over the years, but in a nutshell, you dive in and swim, sometimes half-drowning and other times riding the waves. I love the opportunity for self-expression that is ephemeral and only as important as you make it. 

So how I get started with my Jell-O, once the writing of the script and songs and meeting with the performers has begun, is that I wait for inspiration from my busy little brain and heart. I see what comes up, subject-wise, as we figure out the theme and set the tone. Sometimes I go to the thrift shop and find some irresistible prop to build my idea around or in.

The theme we came up with is The Good, The Bad, The Jell-O. 

Originally we  thought we might go Western because it is fun, but then we took out the "and" so the theme would seem more open to interpretation, as our gift to the artists. I mean, if someone can't go off from good and bad, they can pick one. Plenty of either to choose from. I'm not fond of duality, so I"m thinking of this as the ultimate in universality...it's neither, but all of everything at the same time. Expressed in Jell-O. So many cultural subjects to refer to...I just thought of that film that won all the Oscars last year. I didn't really like it that much, but I'm not big on either action or surrealism, or whatever they were trying to do in that film. But everyone seemed to think it was hot at the time.

I tried to watch the western with a similar name, but I got to about the middle when Clint was getting his skin back, and quit watching. Just not enough to work with for me, though it was tempting. I hope we have someone who can whistle well so we can use their recurring theme whistle at some point in the show. We always get seduced by whatever is in the current zeitgeist, and of course that is tons of fun. Sometimes it is even cathartic and surprising when it seems like the zeitgeist is listening to us. Like last year, when I put googly eyes on the creepy spy balloon, unaware that googly eyes were a theme in that award-winning film about Everything. 

Anyway, enough about the performance, because it is barely in its infant stages and will go in many directions from where we think we are now. And I've been told more than once that it is more fun for us than our audience, but of course, that was not nice, fair, or true. If it hadn't been my brother saying it I might have really been hurt, but I know there are lots of people who just don't see the value of the Jell-O Art Show and never will. There are lots who do!

Or anyway, a few people. One fun thing is that we force the Slug Queen to give a Benediction, so we get to know them a little and they get to try to figure it all out too. The raining Queen, Queen Jubilee Hedonisto, admitted on Facey that she is already experimenting, so that is fun.

Last year we had some people down from the Portland Peculiarium who included an actual expert gelatin artist who made an exquisite gelatina with frogs and frog eggs and all kinds of cool flavors, which was eaten from the Tacky Food table, which reappeared for the first time post-pandemic. They even tried a Jellofest of their own in Ptown, which my son dutifully attended, but we have been doing ours for a much longer time so ours is better, no offense. It's our 35th! But it brought us a lot of attention from the Oregonian and an interview and all kinds of extra nonsense, which will likely not occur this year. It was thrilling, and more random things could occur!

One never knows. But anyway I told Queen Ju (not sure she has a nickname or what it would be...) that I would talk about techniques a little for beginning artists, so I'll just give a little bit so you don't have to scroll down for all of my informational posts amid the self-obsessed chatty ones. 

Basically, if you are doing wet Jell-O and like to retain the jiggle, you want to decrease the water in the recipe, and the easiest technique is a mold, which can be anything that you can get the sculpture out of. Those wasteful blister packs are good, and those modern silicone molds are super, since they are a bit flexible. The old style molds are tricky, as you don't want to immerse them in water hot enough to melt the whole surface off your piece, but you do have to unmold. If you eschew the jiggle and make it harder, say, using 1/4 or less of the water, you can usually pry it out without breaking it up. If you do, remember that gelatin is also glue, so you can glue it back together with some hot Jell-O. Not too hot.

A lot of the fun for me is trying out a different technique every year, so I get spontaneity and surprise, so I do usually start way early to work that out, despite the joy of having a deadline to meet. You can remelt and reuse gelatin, so when it doesn't work just put it in the microwave. 

I personally use just plain gelatin, which I buy in 25 pound lots, because I wouldn't want to run out. I dye things in my business so I have a lot of dye, and I should mention that We Don't Generally Eat Jell-O!  I mean, you can, if you like. Apparently it is good for you to have that bone-strengthening animal matter, and you can get Vegan gelatin too, but to me it is just gross as a food and all those chemicals have to be poisonous. It's glorious to look at and the chemicals taste good, since they're made to do that, but I don't know why they give it to you when you're sick. I guess because it is delightful in so many ways, and you need that in the hospital. But anyway, you can get the Knox brand, which is rather expensive, or you can petition Glorybee to stock it in bulk which I have tried. It's still not too cheap, even though they have little else to do with all those beef hooves and whatnot. Last time I think it was about $10 per pound in bulk. It's also heavy so I go for the free freight deals.

If you do use the Knox, I figured out that it is a quarter ounce per envelope of gelatin (last time I looked.) The formula I use for my dried stuff is 3 oz per cup of water. And mix it up in cold water, stirring, let it "bloom" for maybe 10 minutes, and then melt it in the microwave for a short time, maybe 30 seconds at a time, until it is clear. It may have some foam to skim off. I use canning jars, as hot gelatin is quite the thing to burn you and splatter all over your floor, immediately hardening into a hard job to clean up. And burning you. Sticks like glue.

Jell-O brand has its own rules, and used to have a "jigglers" recipe, which you can use. While it is possible to carve, slice, and use other knife techniques, molding it into the approximate shape you want is easier. For your piece, there aren't any rules, and you can use all the Ken and Allan dolls you want, rubber slugs, exotic coloring like black and white (candy supplies work well), or even metal powders like I did for the gold. Do whatever you want to have fun playing, and make your statement or your mess. You do not have to follow the theme or even have a theme or an intention or artist statement or any of that. Do whatever you want.

It is supposed to be FUN!!!!

When it stops being fun, put it in the fridge or feed it to the possums or whatever you want to do. I have mine all in the attic and my room full of costumes. I like the dried because I can keep it for the Jell-O Art Museum (in my attic) and also recycle it into next year's piece, or even give it away to future Queens. I can post more about the many tricks I have learned for making it work, but you can also try things and maybe they will be new to me.

That's enough for now. You can email me at dmcwho@efn.org if you have something specific you need to know, or join in the Facebook discussions, and if you look around instagram and facey, or google, you will find out that there is an international community of jelly artists and some of them are incredible. 

Subjects for another post...the sun is out. Best of luck, Artists of Gelatinaceae, the Realm of Jell-O Art. You rule!

 

A Video!

 The Oregonian online, or I guess Instagram to be exact, has a video now, from the interview at my house and a ton of footage at the show itself. Really excellent work by Samantha Swindler and Elizabeth Castillo-Salazar. Samantha wasn't able to come to the show but I saved her a shirt, so let me know if you come to Eugene, Samantha. This coverage was wonderful and really enhanced our experience. Very grateful.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqbWnYev6db/?fbclid=IwAR2FYKFPs8cNbGxIkcs6tVGcLSrdgW2jGsR8fXD7Imjqf0DMpMZJtbsg7nQ 

Indi came by Saturday Market yesterday and got a new apron, so next year we might all be in silver! I'll be waiting for the perfect one to appear in Anna Lawrence's booth, Anna's Haute Tops, which you can find on the internet but is so much better in person at Satuday Market, right across the aisle from me.

Spring has definitely sprung! 

And there is more: the performance video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDF1Lvsk0a0