Jell-O Jamboree

 

Yes, indeed, it is Jell-O Art season again, and I am as usual a little bit late to the party. After the Xmas retail season I need a vacation so it takes about this amount of time to get the decorations put away and get to thinking about show, my art, and my goals for this Jell-O year. It makes the timeframe really short! The Show will be March 21st. 

Our show has landed at the beginning of spring break for the last couple of years, so that the gallery where we have it can hang and take down their other, month-long art shows that are their real business. We get to suspend all that art world business to be completely irreverent and bring out silliness into their space, for one Saturday evening that somehow takes months to prepare for. The gallery is at Maude Kerns Art Center, at 15th and Villard in Eugene. (You can go tho their website for lots of photos of past shows.)

Art on glass by David Gibbs

We decided on Jell-O Jamboree for this year, feeling like everyone in our sphere needs some simple, childlike fun, and we as a troupe need to regroup with less of a narrative and more of a variety show. The Jamboree evokes celebration for its own sake, with a touch of nostalgia. It's likely that many people immediately think of Boy Scouts, and that's okay, because we do plan to bring together all of the many troops of artists and appreciators who are linked through Jell-O.

However you want to use it, Jell-O remains a silly, gorgeous, uncooperative art media that can be taken in any direction. We're an art movement that defies structure. First time, 37th time, all are welcome. Whatever you want to make, how ever you want to do it, theme or not, pretty or not, we want you to have fun with something irreverent, impervious to judgement, outside of the critical structure of the money-art world, and just pleasing to the eye and spirit. I know some people still eat Jell-O...I generally do not, but again, make your own rules. If you want to make something edible, be safe in your preparation, but you can choose to put it on a pedestal or carve it up for the Tacky Food Buffet.

This was Tacky Food, and delicious

 

We try to pick a theme with a lot of latitude and interpretations,  so you can comment on art, politics, our local scene, or anything you want. Focus on the Jam part if you want---Jell-O Jam. Turn Boree into Boreal and make a tree. Gather up your own scout troop and make some together. 

Nothing is banned or inappropriate, although we do ask that no one make a big mess if possible. Throwing Jell-O can only be done if you clean it all up and the white walls don't have to be repainted. People have done that...we either had a kiddie pool with wrestling in it or it was someone's idea that never got to the final stages (Jell-O is cold, by the way, making wrestling in it not as fun as you might think, as my next-door neighbors found out one summer. Also it takes a giant amount to make something thicker than water, and the price has gone up no doubt.)

I just checked bulk foods.com where I have bought my 25 pound lots in the past, and it still hovers around $10 a pound in big quantities, more in smaller ones. Agar-agar is more  but it says you need less, 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of gelatin. If you are just starting out you can play with Jell-O itself, but the name brand stuff, although cheap and usually on sale, has a lot more in it than gelatin, so you still need a lot. If you want to make jiggly Jell-O, you can certainly start with the brand-name boxes (and there are some off-brands too, if you like to support smaller producers) using less water for a firmer texture that may not need refrigeration. The bigger boxes of Knox clear gelatin have gotten very high-priced, and I think there is only 1/4 ounce in each of those envelopes, but it's somewhere to start. 

I use just plain gelatin powder, which I color with dyes that I have around from my other art forms. I generally work in dried gelatin, and my mix is 3 ounces of gelatin to one cup of water. It's pretty arbitrary, but I try to stick to it so I know what to expect. I put the gelatin in a quart canning jar filled to half, (that's 2 cups of water) and put in 6 ounces of gelatin, stirring well. I use cold water! It's a lot easier. Then after it "blooms" for about ten minutes (absorbs water) I put the jar in the microwave for about 2 minutes and melt it. 

Be careful as hot Jell-O is sticky and will hurt you. Then I put in the dye, pour it in thin layers in pyrex dishes, or molds, or whatever I am doing according to my plan or the lack of one.

Then I put it in a hot dry place like on top of the piano and tend it for a couple of days until it is dry like paper. I'll go through the process in a later post but I want you all to know how simple the process really is for the kind of art I have been making lately.

With the dried stuff, there is no jiggle, which is one of the best parts of Jell-O art, so you may want to reduce the recipe to use less gelatin and get that firm but jiggly texture that holds its shape and is workable by carving, molds, or stacking pieces together. Melted gelatin makes  excellent glue but you have to have a little patience as it takes a minute or so to go from warm liquid to cool adhesive. 

That's the basic recipe, gelatin and water, and you can use a lot of different things for color, including those neon food coloring kits and things like milk, candy coloring, metal powders and whatever you have around. Ink, paint, natural materials like flowers, you try it.

If the theme doesn't give you a workable prompt, play for a while and let your brain come up with something you want to do. I usually have some technique or end result I want to find out about. I've tried the gelatinas, which you make with syringes and other tools, and it is hard, but very fascinating to see and even eat. I'm made all kinds of molds with wax, plastic, toys and found objects. I sometimes like to go to a thrift store and see if there is anything fun I want to center around. Once I used a copper-faced pink breadbox to represent a house for Fishhead Barbie. Barbie has made lots of appearances with the rest of her family, including GI Joe. Props are just fine and many of us use them. 

Personally I like to make political statements and there will be those. It's a little tricky to know what will be funny or urgent in mid-March, but you can make a good guess or just project. It doesn't matter. Your community of Jell-O Artists will like anything you make. Or they won't, but you won't know about that, because we have no winners, no Best of Show, no evaluation of success or quality. There is no bad Jell-O Art. It's just about having fun, and if it isn't fun, maybe you should make yourself do it anyway until you learn how to find the fun in there. That can be an artistic journey all in itself. 

The Radar Angels, the group of artists and creators who started this in 1988, wanted to stimulate the inner artist in everyone and give people access to participating in a gallery show. When you put your creation on a pedestal in a gallery, art shifts for you. It's not supposed to intimidate, but free us from the usual criticism we do to hold ourselves from really enjoying our creative lives without limits.

Jell-O will limit you, as it can be super uncooperative if you try to force it to do what it can't or isn't in the mood to do. I like that challenge, and although I don't know if I will find a new technique this year, I do plan to start today with some part of a project. I like to do props for the stage and I know of one that needs to be made. I'll be making some large sheets on the lids for big tubs. They are plastic so it won't be shiny like it is when I use pyrex, but the lids are flexible so it is easy to get the gelatin to release...sometimes it sticks to the pyrex and you have to know some techniques to free it. Read back to some earlier posts for tips or let me know what you want to learn and I'll try to write about it.

So get going! It's a perfect day for Jell-O. Internet research is also great fun...there are quite a few Instagram artists who make delightful gelatin (called Jellies in other countries) and there are even a few shows here and there, usually focused on edible sculptures, but look them up. You can try posting things on my Facebook page, Gelatinaceae, where I will try to keep up despite hating all things FB. Follow some inspiration on Instagram, which has more videos. I promise to share more. Maybe I'll even get around to my review of the art from last year, which I never did complete. 

Jamboree! Sounds fun.