Pure pleasure

I've been totally seduced by Jell-O. I've spent most of the last week making gorgeously colored, thin wavy graceful curving pieces of wings, flowers, and various magical parts that now fill my living room in stages of completion.

I sent this lovely piece to my Mom for her 85th birthday. It's about 8 inches in diameter. I know she doesn't need a useless piece of beauty but then again, what could she want more? It certainly beats an arrangement of dying foliage and blooms made and dropped off by strangers. It's not as good as a visit, of course, but I was just there in September.

Naturally I am observing my obsession and immersion in play but I've convinced myself that this is my truest art form and I'm just going for it. There's nothing this free, for me. Since gelatin art is not on the spectrum of fine art that is worth money, there is no structure of criticism for it and no interface with the world of investors and collectors, so it just is what it is.

And it is so pleasurable to look at it and fit the pieces together and watch them distort and curl as they dry. I laid out a version of my plan, which is to create a garden around this life-size figure, make and mount wings on her, and somehow create a life-size Radar Angel. I will probably attempt to make a self-portrait for a face, after I get farther along.

Celeste made the figure, and I have two of them, and I hope she gives me permission to mess with them. She also made a jacket out of ribbons and silk scraps which I might transform into some kind of tree trunk, maybe. Nothing is glued together yet, so the flowers might end up being rearranged and there will undoubtedly be many layers and pieces to the wings.

My process is just making strong Jell-O (actually just gelatin powder in hot water), then drying it in thin sheets in all of my baking pans and plastic tubs and lids, stacked up on top of my piano. You have to turn it a few times as it dries, and peel it off the glass or plastic when it is in the right mode to not be brittle. I sometimes will curl it up or fold it while it is flexible but mostly I just let it shape itself. My secret this year is two plastic bowls that are supposed to be big lettuce leaves I guess. You can see one in the picture of the figure, the aqua one at the bottom. I swirl the gelatin around in the bowl until it sets up, and when it comes out it looks like a rose.

The wings are about two feet tall, and will get bigger as I add ruffles and layers to make them stronger. I've almost used up that five pounds I bought. I'll need a lot more, maybe ten more pounds, so there is some value in it, but it's well worth it to me for the great amount of fun I've had. It will add up to a hundred dollars or so, not that much on the scale of things.

I'm halfway serious about having a Jell-O art Museum when I am old. I have years worth of dried stuff now, and don't want to stop. There's something about it, the accessibility, or the origin as an item from the kitchen, that appeals to me on every level. I find it so very beautiful.

I feel like I am way out in the woods somewhere, just me and my art, on retreat. I'm never coming back. Well, I guess I will have to, but not until April Fools.