Soul requires jiggle

Here's a piece I wrote in 2008 which puts my odyssey with Jell-O Art into words.


The Way
Jell-O. Just add water. Sweet, pretty, fun, and it jiggles. Just like me!

I’m a Jell-O Artist. A group of women artists called the Radar Angels started the Jell-O art show in 1988, and it comes around on April Fools Day, always different, always whipped up at the last minute to last only three short hours.

Why Jell-O?

People love Jell-O. Jell-O is real, but fake. It is not food, but masquerades as food. Its colors are unnatural and gaudy, brilliant and transparent as glass. It attracts, delights, and amuses. It’s universally known, well-established, an icon.

Jell-O is a commodity. It comes in a box, a recognizable, effectively marketed, cultural box. We all live in that box, the one artists are always trying to get out of.

Jell-O is a metaphor. It represents the art that is available to the common woman. Make Jell-O tonight! Create a sensation! Make some magic!

Jell-O Art subverts the American icon. It transcends the domestic box. As women and the children of women, we resonate deeply with Jell-O Art.

As an art material it is both easy to mold and entirely uncooperative. It’s cheap and disposable. It’s dependable, and has unexplored possibilities, but they are limited in scope. It’s accessible.

There is no established Jell-O art hierarchy. There is no criticism or judgment. There is no good or bad Jell-O art. It stands on its own, or jiggles and melts, on its own clear and brilliant terms.


Art is a response. Jell-O responds (poke it), and evokes emotion. Ooh. Aaah.

Art is self-expression. The artist reaches within, and pulls the soul out to examine and display. The soul can’t be compromised. The soul can’t be boxed. Soul requires jiggle.

Art is a vehicle to connection. It brings us together, where we learn and grow. We find each other, at the great big potluck of life, where there is always Jell-O.

Art is business. Artists become commodities, with their products. Jell-O Art is outside this world of art marketing, although a piece of Jell-O art once sold for $400. Most of it goes into the compost.

Art asks questions. The questions are endless. What is truth, what is real, what matters? What can be expressed? What can be turned upside down? What assumption can be examined? What icon can be assailed?

Artists create. The process is as important as the result, to the artist. The process starts with the question, and attempts an answer. Often the question is: who am I? Who am I at this moment, in this world? What can I say? What am I feeling? What kind of Jell-O do I like best?

I created. Through making Jell-O art annually as a spring ritual, I discovered my creative process. When I realized I had one, I went from a self-taught, outsider artist with no credentials, to a capital-A Artist. All along, the questions were in place, but it took Jell-O for me to find the answers.

It’s alive. Don’t say no, say Jell-O.