Busy Buzzy Slippery Sloppy Jiggle

It's going to happen! The Jell-O Art Show is just around the corner. This Saturday!

The Jell-O Project 2009

 We have two more rehearsals and then the show will go on...no more secrets, lots more laughs, and then it will all be history: my stage debut, hilarious costumes, excellent sets and props. In the space of about 15 minutes my life achievement bar will be raised a little higher.

I keep trying to tell myself that all of it is not a big deal. Hundreds and thousands of people perform every day, with varying degrees of professionalism, and the performances that give the most satisfaction are the ones in which the performer herself is visibly enjoying the process as well as the transmission. I keep reminding myself how much I am enjoying the process.

I like being a little obsessive; it makes my art feel important and compelling. I don't think it matters one bit that my obsession is focused on Jell-O Art. I love going from piece to piece doing the next steps all at the same time...there is always some detail to pin down before cogitating on the next one. Sometimes I have a vague idea to start with and the final product is something completely unimagined until it emerges.

Creativity just builds on itself. I suppose it collapses at some points...I'm pretending that can't happen, and will deal with it on Sunday after the show. I do not have to be creative one whit on the day after the Jell-O Art Show. I do not have to go on the radio or the TV or answer my phone or anything else if I don't want to. 

But from now until Saturday at 8:00 pm I am ON! Working steadily and relentlessly to perfect what I have finished and finish what I have nearly perfected, I am starting to have a little trouble sleeping.

That's not a bad thing. On Thursday I have to get up really early and create the Jell-O Art Museum on my front porch for KEZI-TV. It will be a bit of a practice run, a bit of a workshop on making Jell-O Art, a bit of historical celebration of my outre ouvre, a bit of acting, some major silliness, and it could go viral if it is delightful enough. 

I've pretty much dropped off the internet radar since my big push to be a famous Jell-O Artist a few years ago. You have to maintain your fame in the intertubes. I've never done a TV interview before. I hadn't ever done a radio interview before either, but Michael Canning at KLCC made it easy (no small thanks to Radar Active, a seasoned promoter of all things Jell-O). It was all over in about five minutes and lots of smiles were exchanged.

And so it will be with the TV, and then with the show. I realized that some of the set pieces I have been slaving over for weeks will be displayed for maybe 60 seconds, or maybe even the 15 or 20 minutes of the performance, and then will be artifacts of little usefulness. (Which I will save for the Museum of Jell-O Art, of course.) So the point is easily seen to not be the final product, or a product at all.

This is something truly ephemeral, something meant to last for only a few hours at most. Anything I try to do to extend its life or magnify its importance will all be lost in a few hours, except in legend.

One of the best things of the last few days was reconnecting many former Jell-O Artists with their Jell-O histories. They haven't forgotten them, but I have only vague memories of most. It is so fun to meet up with someone and have them describe to me, in detail, the classic or failed or ridiculous Jell-O pieces they have made. People remember their fun!

I've started trying to make a list of each year, the theme, and my piece, which may not be as hard as you think, because I have a lot of those old-fashioned photos, the ones on paper. And I have t-shirts, a t-shirt for every year except the first few. Mine started in 1994. I know Mike Martin made one earlier than that, but I don't have it handy. It was just a big Jell-O box with the lettering in red on a white shirt, I think. I used the art again in my first one, 1994, when I made it into Jell-O-Rama. I have faithfully created one each year.

I love these particular shirts, the Jell-O Collection. I get to be completely self-indulgent with the design, and don't care whether they sell or not...if they don't, I give them away to the artists and performers. I sometimes refer to the theme, sometimes quite loosely. I always do them at the last minute, though this year I did it last week, and finished them just in time to get one on TV via MKAC. 

Yes, the Jell-O Art Show costs me three months of productive work time, several dollars in bulk gelatin, blank shirts and piles of art materials, but the payoff is huge for me. Fun like I rarely seem to have it, fun that engages every part of me. Each year I stretch, whether it be in gelatin technique or concept, or in putting on a show as I am doing with the group this year. Fun that builds on itself, does not consume energy without a giant net increase, art that has legs.

This stuff is seductive, brilliant, and delightful, and I know I am not the only one who feels this. Countless onlookers have been engaged and brought into our Jell-O Art world, despite the fact that there are even a few people on my *friends list* who have never seen it, and don't get it. 

Once you are in, you can see where it goes, even if you don't want to go there too. That's okay, just wait. Someday you will see something like gelatin bubbles on a cake, or Bacon Jell-O, and you will be drawn inexorably in. Inextricably. Your doubts and fears will fade as you play. You will find yourself grinning when your piece wobbles off its plate and you have to start over.

This stuff is magic. You have to step over the threshold though. We make it as easy as we can: just come to Maude Kerns on Saturday night at 5:00. Prepare to form some new synapses. 

And a disclaimer: You could be disappointed. Maybe this year there will be no interesting Jell-O sculptures, no new recipes on the Tacky Food Buffet, and all the singers (especially me) will be off-key, fumbly and annoying. The jokes won't be funny. It will be so crowded and you will be in the back and miss everything. We'll have a snowstorm and all the refrigerators will go on the fritz, and all the Jell-O will slide onto the floor, and my costume will rip and I'll fall off the stage and break my other foot.

You see how it can get. Please help. Think lovely thoughts, dream about the brilliant transparency of life and art, and LYFAO.

Repeatedly. See you at the Show!