Jell-O Bizness

 

We really got the Jell-O Art Show plans jelling this week. The brainstorming is the fun part that reminds me that I really do want to do it. I really do have the energy to make another show happen. It's a fine bunch of warm and talented people and we work together to create silliness and joy. It's hard to think of a better way to navigate the winter months.

I've made some Jell-O, since I have very little left after last year's Boxes O' Fun. I gave away about six tubs worth of my 12 tubs of gelatin pieces...so I can make specific ones for this year's project if I can get settled on what it is. This part is just playtime...I put them on a table and arrange them in various ways while I think about some kind of concept. 

I kind of lost interest in the crowns idea. The sticks didn't really work out, so I threw what I made outside when it got moldy. Then I picked it out of the compost and thought maybe I would just let it age outside and see what it turned into. It might become something. I might glue moss and lichen on it and make it super-natural...or I might throw it back on the compost. I have plenty of time to decide.

We settled on the theme: There's No Bizness Like Jell-O Bizness. It reminds us of a fun song that we can use at the beginning, and it seems like a good prompt for the artists...because Jell-O bizness is funny bizness. So they can go off into any kind of business they want...real estate, banking, politics, all hilarious. All worthy of satirical comment anyway. Serious Bizness.

We always have a blast tossing around ideas for a meeting or three. Tonight we constructed somewhat of a narrative so now I get to start a script which is something I love to do. It gets changed a lot, and some years has been completely trashed and started over, but we build on the framework and everyone adds their quirky things. Nothing is too weird at this stage.

Picking a character, or a song, or even just a costume is a way to start, and I thought I might play Queen Elizabeth but now I might try some other royal. Of course I always begin with my own character, the Queen of Jell-O Art, Queen Gelatinaceae. I have the wonderful role of being the bridge between the Jell-O artists and the public, and I usually introduce the Slug Queen and the beginning of the performance. I love the role of the somehow glamorous Queen, even though I know I am a dumpy old lady in a costume...it's a real glamour in the sense of something magical coming over me and everyone else in the room. It's reality and an escape from it at the same time. It's pure fun and everyone gets to laugh with me, or at me, I don't even care. If you think I'm ridiculous, that works fine.

What a piece of freedom. What a gift I have been given. I'm the luckiest of Queens. 

Make sure to put the show on your calendar and attend. It's only three hours, 5-8 on a Saturday night. (March 25th) With luck we will be past Covid enough to forget all of our grief and horror for a few hours and just enjoy that we live in a place where we have a gallery show where everyone works in Jell-O. I mean, what town can beat that?

Things to do on Saturdays

 I started my Jell-O Art season yesterday...it's a commitment of space so I dragged my feet a little. I have about ten dishes of pieces drying all over the living room, which is where the hottest air sits. It's important to dry the gelatin at the right speed so it doesn't get moldy and you also don't miss the flexible stages you want to use to reach your vision. Most times in these early stages the vision is vague and I love this part where I see what appears from my attempts and then set off to follow those accidental artistic occurrences.

My idea this year, to start anyway, is crowns. I've been pruning the fruit trees and as always I love the branch shapes and have saved a lot of them on my deck rather than just tossing them in the stick tote. I might need a few more sticks to display hats on for retail, but I got to fooling around and put some groups of them together into what might be wall sconces to display Jell-O Art crowns. Then I got some ideas to incorporate the sticks into the structures of the crowns so I embedded some sticks yesterday. We'll see how well they stay in the gelatin, which is mostly going to be a trick of trying not to move the pieces until they get to the right stage of gelling. Which is not something clearly defined, so I expect some do-overs.

The crown idea came from the realization that I have been Queen of Jell-O Art since 2012, so ten years. Actually eleven, if you count the first and last, which of course I must. So this is the start of the 12th. When I was first crowned it was a joke about Queen for a Day but I didn't want to let go so I made myself Queen for life, and that has stuck. Maybe more than I wanted it to. I'm very often referred to as the jello queen although I am not that at all. Google it and you will see why. I don't advocate eating Jell-O. I don't make edible creations if I can avoid it. I'm not Queen of any of that. You might see my photo still, but mostly you find things to eat and some of them are downright inspiring, particularly if you think about making them as art pieces instead of food. Google it anyway, to get you excited about the possibilities. 

There's quite a bit on Instagram too, with some celebrities like the Jell-O Knight, David Gibbs, and some people I hope to meet, like yesyoucaneatthat and Adventures in Jelly, all of whom make excellent things of their own inspiration. There's plenty out there that is Jell-O and is art. 

But as I began doing as soon as I was crowned, I think often about what being a Queen involves. With the death of Queen Elizabeth recently, I've been looking for satirical humor about colonialism and royalty and have had plenty of thoughts about that too. One of my thoughts is about why people insist on having royalty at all...dividing some people off as elevated in station over all of us ordinary folks who just do living. It's a mystery. 

I do get some of it, for instance, starting with little girls and getting them to think of themselves as princesses, and encouraging them to grow into queens in their own self-regard. It definitely beats keeping them confined into the roles of glorified servants and "housewives" and people who are generally subservient or less important than male people who are somewhat automatically given status and titles without much merit in many cases. Even though I find the roles of princesses and queens problematic and unimaginative, it's better than the glass ceilings keeping women out of positions of power in general. I am looking forward to future times when it won't be necessary to have either real, or pretend royalty. I want some other concept where we are all able to reach whatever potential we see in ourselves or can be inspired to see.

So my initial efforts at adopting and understanding my title were mostly plebian, trying to inspire other people with low-ish self-esteem into thinking better of themselves and their possibilities. Everyone can be some kind of artist, and the whole initial idea of the Jell-O Art Show was to make art more accessible and less tied into the world of fine art, art criticism, and hierarchy. I have been transformed by Jell-O Art into thinking and feeling like a Real Artist and it has been truly joyful for me. Yet I have never really been comfortable in an elevated role. If it weren't a comedic prank and so irreverent I wouldn't still be doing it.

So I'm exploring what it really means to me to be a Queen of Jell-O Art. What part of it is just the crown, and how does that particular crown fit in the world with So Many Queens! I mean, one less, since Elizabeth died, but still no shortage, particularly on the internet. And there have now been forty years of Slug Queens in Eugene. When will it end? Can there be Too Many Queens? I sense a song coming on...and that needs to happen, too. So that's where I am starting.

Here are a couple of things I am trying...if I can get them out in one piece and curve them around into crown-ish shapes without tearing them apart, we'll see. I doubt it will work, but it got me interested. So I hope you find a way to get started. I seem to need a new technique to try...a challenge. This will be the thirty-second or third or thirty-fourth year after all. I've lost track. We started in 1988, but then skipped one year, and do we count the two years we kind of didn't have shows? Yes, I do, but not everyone feels the same. And we call it Annual, but it isn't if you skip a year. Or is it? We don't really have an Authority Figure to declare it. I sometimes act that way, but everyone laughs.

And if you are new to this, I have quite a few instructional posts farther down, but just get yourself some boxes of clear (Knox or whatever) gelatin to start, or make the edible Jell-O brand for possibilities. Make it with less water for stiffness, and just see where it takes you. It is supposed to be fun. The goal is to get into that flow state where time just goes by unnoticed while you are in your own world of art. And there, you are queen. It will all unfold in time. 

Mojo Magic

 

I'm waiting for the next segment in the last recording of my parts today. There will be one more session before all of the parts are recorded and then our wizard, Michael Hall, will piece them all together into one of our finest shows.

 Working with the green screen, multiple cameras, and the ability to practice on camera is a whole new dimension for us. It takes a lot of the pressure out of trying to do the live show. It's a good thing because we started so late, had such a small group, and had so much trouble settling on a plan, we had to get it together in only a couple of weeks, without a single rehearsal the way we used to do it.

Costume changes can be elaborate and there is plenty of time to switch out accessories, readjust expectations, and even rewrite lines at the last minute to tighten things up. There's no anxiety about forgetting lines, as we can do it several times until we get it polished.

We had a blast today, just a small group of us cracking each other up with extra jokes, snide remarks and little songs in between takes. I think my favorite moment was at the end of the four-hour session, when we were just recording a little bit of vocals for a number we weren't in...we all started dancing in front of the mic and it felt like we were really stars goofing around together like the oldest of coworkers.

We've been together such a long time. I've only been performing for ten years now, but they have been memorable and have filled my soul. I can't believe I could have been doing it for twenty years before that if I hadn't been living another, more reclusive life. 

I always told myself I had stage fright and couldn't sing live in front of people, though obviously I never did in chorus as a kid or with my family or friends. Telling myself limiting stories about what I could or couldn't do was a habit that provided me some kind of protection but it was a real life lesson to find out how easily a story can be disproven with a little supportive encouragement and patience from some of the lovely people I have been honored to know. It took a long time to get me on stage, and I had to be somewhat dragged, but I hope it was worth the effort. I do love it now. Having the Queen persona is liberating as well...it's me, but not really...she can do lots of things I would be reluctant to do in public. It surprises me that people don't seem to understand that. It makes me giggle that when I say I am dull and a hermit that they see that extroverted social persona and don't know which one to believe in. I mean, if I have Jell-O on my head, I'm the Queen. If I don't, I'm just working or have my nose in a book. (And this is beside the point of this essay, but I am reading Davy Rothbart's book My Heart is An Idiot and it's delightful.)

This morning I was a little resentful to give up my last free Saturday before Market starts, but I sat down early and thought I'd write a few lines for people who were planning to improvise, in case they were still unsure what they would say. I ended up writing four fake news stories in less than an hour, just naturally and without any real effort. I laughed myself. At the same time as I sent them out to the troupe I knew that most or all of it would not make it into the show, and I wasn't at all attached to that...all of our artists are free to do what they choose with little interference from the rest of the group. I just was having fun doing it. I wanted more. I feel that now, too, that familiar disappointment that it all didn't last quite long enough.

We do work together to make the creation, and writing the script is mostly an exercise for me of trying to imsgine enough of a narrative to make everyone's separate parts fit together in some kind of relationship to each other. Our brainstorming sessions are wild fun that we all treasure. The little ways we are hilarious are so endearing and adorable. Each person has their style of it...some at the beginning, coming in fully fixed on an idea or a character, some hanging back and coming in near the finish with something that puts the humor over the top. You might be able to tell that in the performance if you know some of the performers, or maybe not. I find out more of it every time we do this thing together. 

We're lucky to be in this little window of the pandemic where people who are vaxxed and careful can take a little bit of a risk and get together in the same room. This was the first time in two years I unmasked and sort of forgot about dying and killing others by breathing. I'm masked again of course, as I know what's coming and know the window is rapidly closing and will likely remain closed for several months, again. Again! It's hard to do it again, but I'm still determined not to get sick and above all, not to make someone else sick. I'm prepared to sacrifice a lot of things for that. But I'm glad we didn't sacrifice performing together for it this year.

So I'm so grateful for this fun we had. Next Saturday is the Jell-O Art Show, where we will all see the recording for the first time, surrounded by the jiggly and elaborate sculptures of other people coming hesitantly out of isolation for a moment. Let's enjoy what freedom we each feel we can claim, briefly, to feel joy and celebrate the spring. We're having another spring! We're having another Jell-O Art Show! What a wonderful world it can be.

Workshop Coming Tomorrow!

 

Happy to report we Angels got our mojo working and we have a fantastic performance planned. We'll be recording next week I think, so today is costumes, practicing lines, last-minute script revisions, and full-on Jellosity!

 I love this kind of day when I go from creative project to creative project. Practicing for my workshop tomorrow keeps the anxiety level down. Tried a zoom without an audience to see where to put my camera and that was interesting. My kitchen window makes it too bright for plan A but I have lots of plans yet. The big question is how much cluttter I will have to clear away to frame a put-together clean studio/kitchen so I can fool my fans into thinking I am a good housekeeper.

I'm not worried about the zoom participants as much as the entirety of  the YouTube universe...and posterity...this other video of me has persisted for a long time, which I enjoy. 

 As you can see I tend to overdo it and that will be everyone's benefit. I can spend a week or a month on a project trying to cover every possible scenario while also allowing that random chance and the unknown complications will mean I have very little control. I don't mind having little control when it comes to Jell-O Art.

So get over to MKAC today and register for the workshop and pick up your Box-O' -Fun! If you don't feel like you can afford the donation I will be happy to cover you...just send me an email at dmcwho@efn.org and let me know your problems or questions. We should still have a few boxes for purchase at the Jell-O Art show if you can't do it today. They contain gelatin and instructions so you can do it on your own, and after the workshop zoom there will be a YouTube at some point.

What a glorious day to be an artist!  https://www.mkartcenter.org/jello.html#jelloworkshop

 

 

Gettin' My Jell-O Mojo On

 Covid Jell-O has not been easy and the group of us has been floundering just a bit. Some of us, so eager to resume the good things in life, scheduled vacations at the time of or just before the show. It's pretty hard to put together a performance or an event with an ever-shrinking group of less-than-enthusiastic participants. And some of us are just getting old and losing our momentum. So we named the show Jell-O Mojo. We're hoping to get ours back. I actually believe we will.

 I will not give in to that ennui! I can't, because being the Queen of Jell-O Art is a monster that I don't control. I don't get to give up, or even be very lazy. It's only a few months of my life, and really only a big part during February and March, when everything is supposed to be rolling. I would say it is drifting toward the goal, and I have *high hopes* that we can pick up some speed. Picture those ants with that rubber tree. Bigger goals have been accomplished than a pandemic art show.

 Because we are still not sure what kind of a performance we can pull off, that might be a hasty miracle of some kind, though it should still be plenty of fun no matter how it turns out. I tried to watch our zoom show from last year, and it wasn't terrible. There were giggles and even a guffaw now and then.  I'll see if I can find a way to add it at the bottom of the post.  Oh wait, here's a youtube.

This year, I have a whole new idea. I'm going to have a workshop! On zoom, of course, but this will be special. I took my whole collection of dried gelatin pieces, which was divided by color into a dozen plastic tubs, and re-divided it into twelve to fifteen boxes which I am calling Jell-O Box O’ Fun. I'll include some plain gelatin and instructions and a few surprises, and people can make Jell-O Art with me on the zoom March 12, from 1-3 pm, or work on their own. It's a good assortment of colors, shapes and sizes and some sticks (because everything is always better on a stick). 

 You will have to donate to MKAC to get one, and they are limited to what I will have when I'm finished putting them together (by next week?), and I'm hoping they will encourage some buzz. It's THE QUEEN'S Jell-O! Who doesn't want a chance at that?

 I mean, there ought to be some dedicated or curious Jell-O artists who will want some. I really hope so. Maybe you?

I have not practiced this zoom yet but I will this weekend, and it may be awkward and limited because I expect I will go off camera frequently and drop things and have some technical failures. I'll have to be dressed up and in a silly mood, but I think this might succeed in Bringing the Silly Back which is our tag line. 

And we have a brand new Slug Queen, Galaxia Cosmos, who is very intriguing and who will undoubtedly have a new take on the Benediction. They're always new and different, but we don't get many from outer space so I'm up for the ride. Queen Galaxia blew the crowd away at the coronation last August and had the perfect pandemic wisdom so add Jell-O to that and you know it will be good. Go like their Facebook page and check out their good works and fantastic personality. Plus we should have some of those Old Queens at the gallery. You know they like to go to all the happening events.

So stay tuned. The show is Saturday March 26, not the Opening Day of Saturday Market, so you can all come and you can all make some Jell-O sculpture too, right?

Sadly, you will have to wait until next year for the return of the Tacky Food Buffet, but you can always put edible Jell-O on the pedestal and call it art, especially if it has celery in it. Or capers. All foods are better with capers. And olives. And mandarin oranges...that sounds good, doesn't it? Better than chocolate-covered brussels sprouts anyway. See you soon!

 

 

 

Just Roll With the Changes

Despite being a Queen, I am not really in charge of anything except my own attitude. I haven't been super good at keeping that adjusted either. But every day is a new opportunity.

Virtual appearances are all the rage, as you know, and we are working on a recorded zoom for our performance for the Jell-O Art Show this year. Maude Kerns has added the capability to project  recordings in the gallery and have been having some movie nights in the last couple of years, so they are all ready for it. We'll show some of the old performances and you all can enjoy them again. They are relics of how it was before, with all that crowding together and eating Tacky Food and hugging.

I hung some stuff in my space so I will have an interesting background for the zoom, and tried it out yesterday for some other meetings, but it needs work. I like visual stimulus (what others would call clutter) in my life so it makes sense to me to create a rich background just like I would for the stage in a typical year. Making the set pieces is always one of my favorite parts. I won't be wearing full costuming most likely, but I don't know that for sure yet. 

I was working on a piece but I think I might just make it into a new headdress for the zoom and call it good. The hours of the show had to be changed to make it possible, and it's now 1-5 in the afternoon. I hate to say this, but I won't be attending in person. This will be the first time if you don't count last year when no one did.

I am planning to donate some fascinators from my vast collection to the gallery for sale, so if you go and you want one, you'll be supporting art in a big way. I still have the blank shirts from last year but I don't think selling t-shirts is going to happen...although the orange color tempts me to do some kind of Covid motif and I might succumb to that desire. Having the desire to create is a big change for me as I am one of those people who spent the last year mostly uninspired and not creating. Again, if I do, they will be sold for donations to the gallery.

I still find it fascinating that I haven't been creative and I can only think that I have been so over-productive in my life that I needed a very long vacation and some semi-retirement. I worked on what presented itself to make money and keep my Market retail going, and did some house repairs and things, but mostly read books and thought and journaled and sat on the deck whenever I could. Also I have a cat now so took a lot of time figuring out and catering to her many needs. She does anxiety for me so I don't have to.

Doing a lot of thinking and journaling and learning is a kind of work, scholarly work I guess, and it will undoubtedly not be wasted time. I got a handle on how to write about the Market, by starting with 2019, our 50th season, which was glorious and in retrospect, so priceless. Having a handle on it means I have started the process and the rest is just labor. That feels like some kind of success.

I have a couple of things I shouldn't talk about that will explain why I am going to Saturday Market for Opening Day instead of giving it all up for Jell-O Art, but that's my decision and it makes the most sense this year. Next year I might change back to prioritizing Jell-O Art. This year survival still outweighs having fun, so that's just the way it is. I can still put plenty of energy into promoting the Jell-O and I apologize to fans of the Queen but you know, if I went and hung out at the show, that would mean one less person could enter the space and that doesn't seem fair either. So I would be hanging out in the courtyard or something, which I trust some of the other artists and Radar Angels might do. 

So that's where I am today...still in the half-grieving, half-joyful mode of the pandemic era. Some things are lost and others gained. We're not finished yet.

At Least We Still Have Jell-O

Yup, that's our theme this year: At Least We Still Have Jell-O. Although the group has some enthusiasm, we are still in Covid-mode and will not write and perform a show as usually done. That's just the way it is.

Our current plan is to record a zoom where we all dress up and dance around...to be shown on social media and maybe projected at the gallery during the assigned time, Saturday April 3rd, 5-8 pm.

Plus some kind of compilation film I guess. I'm not in charge of that though it is in capable hands.

I'm in charge of doing a piece (though I'm uninspired) and figuring out a costume. And I will go to the gallery after I finish up my Market day as that is Opening Day of Saturday Market as well. My loyalties go to the Market for income purposes mostly, and for the survival of the Market. 

The gallery is still going to have a physical show of Jell-O Art. They will photograph and show it online and you can also go to the gallery though there will still be some restriction on attendance. Right now they are operating at the current limits for extreme risk but the County is down to High Risk so maybe a few more people can be in the room.

We've been meeting and are getting a little of the regular energy of irreverent cacaphony. Zoom meetings lend themselves well to everyone talking at once and no one being able to hear much or do much organization. I'm still stuck in the ennui of having a year to myself reflected back in my laptop screen. At least we have video filters!

So keep working on your pieces or your thoughts about them, and if you don't want to actually go to the gallery keep an eye on social media for videos or whatever shows up. 

We'll get it all back someday, we hope. For now, we do have Jell-O. At least.