All Jell-O All The Time

It's March already! Fortunately I am moving along rapidly with my Jell-O art ambitions. It's so fun it doesn't seem like work, but some days I work on it from morning until bedtime. I have to force myself to sit down, when my back starts to remind me that I can't spend the whole day on my feet anymore. I'm mixing it up in two quart jars, 6 oz of gelatin to half a jar of boiling water. Stir a lot.

I color it with procion dyes, having long ago realized the limitations of food coloring, though of course if I were to make any for the Tacky Food Buffet I would make sure it was edible. Usually Jell-O brand desserts go on sale before the show due to Easter, and they used to even give away cool molds at the grocery store, some of which I have in my mold collection, but I won't even think about the Tacky Food until the end of March. I also have to come up with some kind of t-shirt, usually referring to the theme, which this year is A Toast to Jell-O, 2011. I even watched the Lawrence Welk show last weekend for inspiration, but nothing comes to me yet. I trust my brain to work on it while I do other things.

So the ambitious project began as a self-portrait, a logical extension of last year's display of 15 or so Radar Angels rendered small and beautiful in boxes. I had thought just to do a head or mask type of thing, but Celeste gave me a couple of full-size figures she made, for my Jell-O Art Museum. That led to thinking of human-size wings, which have been fairly easy to make but are a challenge to mount. I got them to the point where I can wear them, though they are very susceptible to breakage. My idea is to make at least one pair of them removable from the figure so I can flit around the show in the beginning when it isn't crowded.

I decorated the figure with orchids, and made two floral panels to sit around the figure for a sort of garden effect. They need work still. I'm trying to make a bird and a butterfly, and still working on the face/mask/head part.

I spread the melted gelatin in all of my cake pans, pie plates, broiler trays, and some cool bowls that are shaped like lettuce leaves, making thin layers which I then dry out on top of the piano and every other perch available in my living room, where I leave the baseboard heat on way too much while they dry. I'm on my last 5 pounds of the 20 I bought this year, so I guess I will order more. Can't face running out at the last minute to buy those expensive boxes of Knox.

Most of the work is in turning the pieces over, taking them out of the dishes at the right time, arranging the wonderful pieces into recognizable objects, glueing them together with more melted gelatin, and moving things around in my small house. My cat is super annoyed with all of his favorite perches occupied. Presently I have the figure set up in the corner by the front door, but will move it to the art room soon. I haven't been heating the art room, and want to make sure everything is completely dried out, or it might mold.

The drying Jell-O is pliable and only a little sticky and if you monitor the stages of drying you can manipulate it in various ways, prop it up with juice glasses and things to get the curves and folds you want. I rolled some of it up into flowers. It is a bit like paper, somewhat like glass, very much like plastic, and if you don't like what you have you can remelt it and start again.

I think the remelting makes it more brittle, just a theory. Surely some physical change results from changing it from a liquid to a solid and back multiple times. Science! Another reason I am so happy working within these limits, constant discovery.

I have certainly questioned my judgment in spending so many hours making something that will be on display for a small part of one day (April 2). If it weren't so much fun I would worry about some kind of mental disorder (judge if you must) but I think this is what real artists feel like, compelled to make this thing no matter what other people will think. I know it is amazing, and I also know only a small group of people will find it so, and I know it is unlikely to result in any kind of financial reward...though you never know.

I'm a person who likes to work, and it is great fun to have something to work hard on that amazes even me. It's just unpredictable enough to present technical challenges and marvelous beauty and constant innovation. This really represents pure art to me and I'm very happy that I found an arena to work in that suits my experience and talents. I don't care at all that it doesn't result in income. I don't even care if the result is that many people find me unhinged and don't get it at all. I'm planning to take it to Market for Opening Day, too, but this year I will probably cordon it off somehow to keep people from picking it up and breaking things. At the Market part of the attraction is the "high touch" aspect of handmade objects, so people naturally wanted to experience the Jell-O fully and were also not familiar with displays of things that were not for sale. I'll have t-shirts for sale. I really really hope it doesn't rain.

So, here we are so far, with a month to go. We're up to something good! (1985 slogan). Still the coolest (1995). The quickest way to find a smile. (1987)