Jell-O Art Show T-Shirts

There has been a distinct lack of motivation pervading my workshop this winter, a carryover from last summer and fall when I had to force myself to work, and only because I had customers depending on me. For myself, I'd like to put screenprinting into the "if and when I feel like it" category. I've just spent too many years doing it. Once I get going, I can finish the jobs that are the most pressing, but others get set aside and intentions go astray. I guess that is why they invented retirement. My body is also worn out from it, and sooner or later it has to end for real.

But there is a grand history of t-shirt production for the Jell-O Art Show and that job will probably stay on my list for as long as the Jell-O Show does. They started with the second or third show and my ex-partner Mike did the first one, a direct take on a Jell-O box, just black on white with red lettering for the word Jell-O. The second one, I did, but it was much like the first, just adding the word "Rama" and there may have been a short gap while we restructured our partnership. I had John in 1990 so I think 1994 was the first year I really did a shirt. As part of this piece, the first incarnation of the Jell-O Art Museum in 2009, I made posters of the shirts and added a third a few years later. The items on the wall fit into that box, and lots of dried gelatin was glued to the posters. It's up in the attic waiting for that call from the Smithsonian.

So in answer to your question, yes, of course, there will be t-shirts this year. Limited edition, with a few old ones still left over for cheap. Thinking vaguely of images that will fit the theme, Jell-O Waves, or will refer to some aspect of the performance. Or maybe not refer to anything, but just be an image I feel like putting on a shirt. The beauty of the task, and the reason why I am sure I will still do it, is that I get to do anything I want. No one gives me any limits whatsoever on the shirt project, and it's all at my expense, so if they don't sell, that doesn't really bother me. I like to outfit the Angels and the Jell-O Artists and every year I say nobody will get one for free but then give most of them away. The group is really large now, though, so I hope I will ask people to at least pay the shirt cost. Sometimes people don't value what they get for free, and as you can see from this evidence, these shirts are cool and if you have one, you have cool credentials like only a few people get.

 As you can see I have often recycled pieces of the art and some years I get really fancy with the inks. The photo in the center is the 1999 one, worn as performance art as my piece was a Jell-O molded right on my head, which was very successful. I got the idea from the Supremes. The shirt just said "Are you ready for Y2J?"

1995 was probably the most beloved and the screens are ruined or I'd be tempted to reprint it. I love Jell-O Soul a lot and also the Jell-O Wranglin,' but there have been a few duds. The disco one with Donna Summer on a plate with a lettuce skirt was not so great but it did get printed on orange shirts which made it a keeper for those lucky people. Mostly they have been on white and lots of people refuse to wear white. People took the too-sexy Jell-O Fever one reluctantly but it is one of the most ambitious ones in technique, so I love it, though rarely wear it. My Planet Jell-O one is ruined with paint so if you have one you don't want anymore, I'll take it. Never give these shirts to the Goodwill, by the way. I will take them, and maybe even give you money for them, so that my collection will be complete. The cleaner the better. I collect all things Jell-O, of course, so think of me. I seriously do have a Museum of Jell-O Art, which takes up half the attic and half the project room, and someday I will retire and just live to maintain the collection and show it by appointment. Old recipe books and graphics are most welcome. I have a few, but you know how collectors are.

 Though white gets frowns, people do seem to like pink. This year I had probably better choose some watery color. There are, at present, so many interpretations of waves that I have no idea which one I will settle on. As you can see we did Airwaves in 1998 and I used an old radio graphic, so that's out. I was a big Beach Boys fan back in the day, even stood on my chair and screamed and stood by the exit to touch Denny's hair. Poor boys. I was probably thirteen or so, and that is probably the most music crazy I ever got. I bought half of Meet the Beatles (wish I had it now) but I don't think I saw the Beatles. I saw the Stones with an inch-high Mick Jagger in Philadelphia, but I truly did love the Beach Boys and they were all up in my junior high and even high school romance fantasies. So yeah, maybe them. Waving.

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.

Jell-O Master

I'm famous again! I really like this interview by Sean Cuellar. She went all out to get great shots, and edited it down to something quite coherent! 

http://www.kezi.com/turning-jell-o-into-art/.

Too busy to say much more right now...dress rehearsal tonight, and then on with the Show!

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!

Restorative Jell-O

I restored Celeste's dress. Seemed like something I needed to do before moving along into this year's Jell-O Art. I pried off the excess of orchids and leaves that I stuck on there when I appropriated it for my 2011 sculpture. It looks magnificent in its simplicity and now it will get a corner of the Jell-O Art Museum in the full glory of itself.

I settled on a plan for this year's work, something I have been thinking about for a couple of years. I will do a miniature version of the Jell-O Art Museum (plan subject to change, of course...remember what happened to my well-laid plans last year when I broke my heel.)

So I interpreted Celeste's dress in miniature. Loosely interpreted, I should say. I plan to do this for as many of the famous Jell-O Art pieces as I can. It's a cute trick in many cases, and I love the scale of it.

It's a classic move to use Barbies or Barbie-size props in Jell-O Art. Her iconic being lends herself perfectly to the perverted kitschy kitchen-art aspects of using Jell-O for art, adding a layer of metaphor and familiarity, especially for those whose feminist thinking developed around Barbie's warped highheel feet and waspy waist. She's perfect for an apron, another iconic Jell-O Art object (say that with a French accent, please.)

My Barbie stand-in came apart years ago after I tried to get her out of a bath of Jell-O suds that had started to rot. You do not want to memorize the smell of rotten Jell-O, but it is an inevitable part of the total experience.


So anyway, I like using this artist's model that is about the same size. I have a Barbie dressing table and that jewelry case I found last month is on that scale too. I have a lot of photos of Jell-O of the past, and think I can make some recognizable replicas. I'm excited. And that is really the point of all this.

The Theme

The Radar Angels performing group is kind enough to start meeting early in the year and develop a theme for the annual show. I don't know how they come up with them year after year...it's a brainstorm of an advanced form. They consider songs to parody, costumes, who they can include and spotlight, and come up with a starting place in the creative process. It's a big help!

So they refined the idea and it seems to be graphically portrayed as:

OCCUPY JELL-O

2012...The End?

I don't know quite what they are thinking, but I'm guessing the end refers to the world and not to the Jell-O Show, though there might be somewhat of a retrospective in there. With the great slide show running in the side gallery there is always some history present, and the piece I am thinking about includes some archiving. But as usual the theme leaves things wide open to interpretation. Thanks, Angels!

Political Jell-O Art is fantastic. The irony drips like melted art as you try to make essential life statements in a silly food medium. The colors and transparency and joyfulness of the gelatin make it a great vehicle to talk about politics and passion and life and death. The Occupy movement is rich with life-affirmation and I am quite sure people will be able to Occupy the gallery and free up their enslaved wage souls with some ridiculous sculpture. I'm serious.

I take my Jell-O Art very seriously and devote my whole winter to it on many levels. I have not progressed very far into my ideas for this show...I'm in that messy gritty period when there are too many possibilities and none of them look very fun or attractive.

I heard myself telling someone it was near impossible to make flat dried Jell-O so of course I have to now try to make that, even though it amounts to a distraction, though you never know. I tried pouring some nearly gelled gelatin on a blank screen from my screenprinting shop. It is producing some thin flat sheets but not in a useable way yet. I may have to put the screen in the bathtub and soak off the remains. I was kind of trying to merge paper-making and Jell-O Art, which is a direction I will continue in, in a vague way.

I've done a lot of research, writing and thinking about Occupy so have lots of ideas about what I might say, but none are concrete. Sometimes it works to find a prop of some kind to center the project, like the copper-fronted breadbox I found the year I wanted to do something about remodeling my house. It made a good project for Fish-head Barbie to work on. (Yes, a Barbie doll with a fish head was my "avatar" for years, representing me in my pieces. She fell apart and was too limiting anyway, but the fact remains that Barbie is usually present at the show in someone's art.)

I used to go to the Goodwill As-Is store but any trip to Bring or any kind of re-use store could be productive. I've been sorting through my many boxes of little things I've collected to see if anything comes up. Cleaning is usually a good way to get started on creative projects, if for no better purpose than making some space for them. I've been doing a lot of cleaning.

For graphic ideas I go through books and magazines and sometimes the internet, though that is kind of like going to the library without a plan. I know I need to see a picture of the Mayan calendar stone and learn a little more about the cycle's end, and I'm always looking for cool lettering to use on the t-shirt. So I will sort through the art books and fill my brain with images. That's another part of my creative process that helps to firm up the ideas.

Sometimes people give me random ideas or items that seem Jell-O-like to them but usually this is far too early for most people to start thinking about it. It's also too early to get worried about it, so I trust my process even though right now it is unfocused and not productive. It will happen.

Usually I do spend a second or two thinking I won't do any Jell-O this year. Thinking I might do the miniature model of the Jell-O Art Museum is like that...it won't actually require very much Jell-O, and I have about 25 pounds of it. I know I don't want to do a giant thing like I did last year, or a lot of small things like I did the year before, and the year before that. It is always a fallback to just bring some objects from the past shows and call it a display...but that wouldn't be all that satisfying for the artist struggling to express.

So, thinking about it and playing around with a jar of gelatin. Hope you are too.

Jell-O Show 2012

Hurray! The date has been set and the theme chosen for this year's Jell-O Art Show. It will be at Maude Kerns Art Center as usual, on a Saturday night from 5-8 pm as usual, but unlike the past two years, it will not be the first Saturday in April! It will be March 31, which seems like divine intervention for this Saturday Market vendor.

Now I won't have to try to do way too much in one day. The Jell-O Show is already a very big day. Not only do I "have to" make some kind of remarkable personal piece, I like to make lots of tacky foods for the Tacky Food Buffet, and I also enjoy helping decorate the hall and assist the performers if needed. In addition I make and sell the t-shirts, and they have to be brilliant, which is a big project all in itself. March is always very busy, particularly that last week.

I might even make some jiggly Jell-O for my display this year. I love the dried and will certainly do something with it, but the jiggle is a big part of the fun too. The wet Jell-O is such a frustrating and bewitching art material that I kind of miss it.

The theme is Occupy/End of the World for 2012. That should be a fascinating merge and I can just picture the Radars rolling a giant Mayan calendar replica out onto the stage and puzzling over it like the apes from the planet. (I would even be willing to help make the replica, if any Radars are reading this.) We could build it out of protest signs and turn it around into the Occupy mode. I'm sure the performers are already making lists of songs to parody and thinking about apocalyptic costumes. It's the Jell-Occupyocalypse. Cue the bongos.

Lots of us Radar Angels are political activists or were in the past at least, and are still radicals, so it will be a fun opportunity to add our humor to the political discourse. Political Jell-O can be tedious and derivative and repetitious and plebian just like any other kind of political art, and I have done my part in making political Jell-O. I once used an AR-15 (AK-47-looking rifle) to make a mold to put in a coffin surrounded by flowers and Jell-O bullets and clips and had a whole thing going about burying violence. I dressed the mannequin legs in camo.

Speaking of the mannequin legs, I had my doubts when I used them in last year's sculpture, Hope. I need them back. This winter I started taking parts of the display and putting them to other purposes. The mask can stand on its own, as can the bird. The floral panels look great on the walls of my living room, and the little seascapes with grass and waves are presently being made into little mermaid perches. The figure itself, which I appropriated glibly from Celeste, might be restored to its original condition, though the additional snakeskin will probably stay on it. For it to be a part of the Jell-O Art Museum, it should really be in its original condition, which was elegant and graceful. Hard to dance covered with orchids. So Hope will be transformed. That's the theme of the beginning of the movement.

The Jell-O Art Museum concept is alive and well and I am designing a sign for it and have in mind to build a scale model of it. I probably won't be making either one out of gelatin though I will try to work that in. I don't know how much of it will be realized in the short winter period I have for Jell-O Art.

I also don't know where I am going with the Jell-O Art retail I tried last season. It wasn't a failure, and had lots of fun aspects that could continue to develop, but it's pretty distracting at Market and cut into my clothing sales I believe. At HM it was kind of cluttered. I don't know what to do with it. Last night I dreamed I was eating all of the shells and flowers, and they were nearly all gone when I realized it. Not that I would, but it was funny as a dream. Apparently I want to be done with them. Maybe it just means I am hungry for transformation.

Make some Jell-O, artists! At least start thinking about it.

Gelatin Art My Way

I've been having fun in the last few months trying for a presence in the world of Jell-O Art. Today I googled Gelatinaceae images and it was all my photos! Actually way more, it included photos from my other blog and even stuff from the Saturday Market photo gallery. Not everything of course, because strange are the ways of Google.

I have to bring some of the posts and images from the other blog to here, and I will start with some photos from this year's Jell-O Art Show. For anyone new to the scene, the Radar Angels have been holding a Jell-O Art Show for some 23 years, and I have always been a part of it. There has been an evolution, and now I spend a lot of time during the winter months when I'm not retailing, working on Jell-O.

This is me at the show, trying to get the piece assembled, and the show has already started. The next photo is the moment I turned to see a crowd of curious and amazed people all focusing on me! I look quite startled and utterly delighted. It felt like a highly significant life moment, the true fame I didn't know I wanted.



I had made two sets of wings, an upper and lower, but they wouldn't stay on the way they had at home and I eventually gave up and wore the top set, the pink ones. The third photo is a shot of the wings, from when Rich Glauber invited me and Scarlett the Old Queen (who is wearing the other set of wings) up onstage on Opening Day of the Saturday Market, which is the same day as the Jell-O Show most years. It was quite the triumph for me and for Jell-O Art, though in the big world it went largely unnoticed.





The top photo is one of the mask, shot by Kim at the Market, which stands out on its own as a wonderful piece of art. the last shot is the piece set up at my house, in my project room, which is going to be my Jell-O Art Museum. My retirement plan is that I will charge a dollar admission and give tours of my archive of Jell-O Art and Radar Angels memorabilia and artifacts which will probably force me to be open every Tuesday between 1:00 and 1:15 pm. It's about as solid as all my other retirement plans.













But the good thing about being a Jell-O Artist is that there is no need to retire.