Two weeks from today I will be putting everything away and getting ready for an intense week of getting ready for Saturday Market, which I've just been putting off since there's so much to do for Jell-O Show.
Spent a LOT of time getting things out and rearranging my house to do a video interview with Samantha from the Oregonian. Just remembered I'm supposed to be sending her photos. I went to find my photos and realized I've put some of them somewhere else, and I don't know where that is. I hope I put them in an album as archives, and that might be true. I can look through the dozen or so portfolios I have that look identical, as I am archiving so many things right now. All of the things, because I am of the age when something is worth saving right, or not worth saving. That is not going to be easy, for me, or for whomever gets stuck with sorting through the last of it. Which will likely be a lot.
The interview was a lot of fun though. She had done some research, and had great curiosity and questions prepared. It didn't seem to bother her that there was low light, little pleasing empty space to use as background, and so much clutter there was like one place for her to put up her tripod. She was so very professional.
She's had the job for 10 years, she told me, and has the best beat: the weird and quirky. I will have to go read up on her own portfolio. I know she did a piece on the Slug Queens last summer, and that is how she stumbled upon the Realm of Gelatinaceae, the Jell-O Art Queendom. She had it on her calendar since then. I feel so important.
Indi came and did it with me, both of us costumed. Indi is very good at speaking about history and anecdote...she has a great memory for it. I have a more rambling style that needs a good editor. I've written and spoken a lot about Jell-O Art, but it's eclectic history and so connected to the other things in my life that I can't really separate it.
The first Jell-O Art Show was in 1988, which seems impossible but is after the Radar Angels had been going for probably ten years...it was maybe 1978 or therabouts when the group got started doing teas and shows and wild abandoned activities around Eugene. And by 1988 I was solidly into Fibergraphics and my success as a t-shirt entrepreneur, and it was the early days of the t-shirt heyday. We did the Fish Tie spawning in 1986. In 1990 I had a son and turned 40 and then things really sped up, but Jell-O Art was even more important going forward, and kept growing.
No one would have predicted us here and now. When we gave the awards at the 30th Show, Jell-O Goes Gold, I remember Angela telling Indi she had to do it for 30 more years. Okay...four down now. Our stage is one where old ladies are welcomed, though, and maybe we will still be up there decades from now. No predictions.
An Angel was lost this week, though, Rita, to a heart attack. Here and then gone. I didn't know her well but I am still sad and a little despondent about it. As it gets closer and closer to my turn to transition to a less earthly form, I'm not anywhere near ready. And I don't like grieving all the time. I feel like it is still the shutdown of the pandemic...everything normal is suspended and we're all just supposed to keep getting on with things. Doesn't feel right.
Make more Jell-O, my solution to every emotion I can't handle. Write and make art. I did spend time outside yesterday in the sun, moving sticks around and sweeping the sidewalks. As it is windy again, I will have to do it some more. But getting outside was wonderful, and I sat on the deck to go over the script. Had some fun ideas to embellish it a little. Got a pretty good idea of what to do for my piece.
It's not crowns now, although I may still make some. I'm probably going to go with the theme this year, Jell-O Bizness. Changed my whole shirt design idea too. That is what I should be working on right now...but we have practice today. I have to learn those lyrics.
See ya! Make life fun, make some Jell-O tonight!
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