Jell-O for All!

It's my birthday, my 61st. Last year I felt compelled to enjoy a big deal about it, but this year I'm keeping it low, just going through some of my usual emotional processes. I couldn't get to sleep last night, full of self-examination and thoughts about my progress on the planet, what I can do better, what mistakes I might be engaging in at this point in my life. I do all that while also being extremely grateful for having gotten this far and feeling some measure of satisfaction and even happiness as I begin another turn through the seasons.

I never work on my birthday if I can help it, and usually hardly work all week. I did some printing on Monday and got myself to Tuesday Market for the first one this year, and am glad I did.

The Jell-O is causing a buzz! I sold two roses and got lots of opportunities to talk about it. People are just amazed and delighted at the gorgeousness of the flowers and full of ideas for what I should do next. I promised a mermaid collector I would make a mermaid or two. I put orchids on headbands and roses on pinbacks for boutonnieres. I pinned one in my hair on Saturday and can be seen in Kim's flickr stream of photos of Market, but I look too ghoulishly old in the picture to want to display it here. Here are a couple of bathroom mirror pictures of the "fascinators" I made this week.

My friend Pamela so generously took me to Wicked on Saturday night and I wore Jell-O in my hair, a purple orchid, and we sat in the fourth row. That means just about everyone in the Hult Center saw me and wondered what the heck it was. Usually people think it's glass, which of course would be too heavy and dangerous. Jell-O is perfect. The sun throws colors on my hair and all around me, and I feel totally elegant and special. I think it may just be a real product now, though time will tell. I made some little cards to give out and a lot of people picked them up on Saturday. I'm presently the top hit on google for Jell-O Artist, which is some measure of universal success. I'm not just alive, I have done something pretty darn special for my fifteen minutes.

I like what my friend Dave says: "You're one in a million, and there's a million just like you." Keeps a bit of perspective. I get a thrill out of saying I'm probably the only person in the world making these items, but anyone could do it. I even tell how. My thrill will most likely be short-lived, but that doesn't take away any of my enjoyment today.

We had a satisfying SM Board meeting last night, made some decisions that took bravery and deep thought, and I was especially proud of my friend Willy for his leadership and listening skills. He used to work with pre-schoolers and their parents and he is putting that to good use now, fielding all the emotions that fly around the room because we are all so deeply invested in our organization. Even though we are getting so big we almost fit the description I came up with for OCF this week: a humongous spinning ball of energy that no one is in charge of. If you are lucky you can guide it ever-so-slightly in one direction or another but its energy and synergy are just not under the control of any single person, so looking for an authority figure to mete out justice is futile. You have to step in, advocate for what matters to you, and add your energy to the spin. Be careful, never reckless.

Be thoughtful, yet open to new ideas. Come from the heart and use your head. Don't be too afraid. Remind yourself you are just one tiny part of something amazing, and can take a little credit while not feeling too powerful. Negative energy can spin things just the same as positive can, so stay on the sunny side. We are the microcosm, and have carved out a space where we can act and be, and be safe, and prosper and be happy in our choices. We can allow lots of chances, and we don't have to burn any bridges or engage in any fruitless quests or silly quarrels. It's more than a market, and the universe is unfolding as it should. (Those are some of the mantras our staff shares with us...our staff is the most amazing team ever pulled together.)

The Tuesday Market people bonded. I'll do a separate post about it. Our Board took a couple of steps into a more secure future last night regarding keeping our market vital and open to all while protecting our niche and our prosperity. We have things to work on, but the will to solve the problems in constructive and kind ways, and I'm happy to do my part.

With Jell-O! Hurray!

You've got to serve somebody

As an aging political radical, I feel a certain responsibility to uphold my counter-culture ideals, but those are hard-wired by now and I don't often need to examine them or my ability to stay true to myself. I have noticed in my mature years that life is a series of compromises, and it becomes hard to be consistent, when the real need is to be practical about survival and, as Beth said, "Let's pay the bills."

Beth, our fearless leader, is a visionary who has an immense heart, especially regarding the Market, which is a highly spiritual undertaking for many of us. I trust her completely to have the best interests of our eclectic group in mind with the far-ranging decisions she makes daily. Kim's instincts for how to keep Market thriving are finely tuned as well, and our management team is dynamic, amazing, and so very thoughtful about how to move into the future, which comes every Friday at midnight, relentlessly, rain or shine.

Us old folks feel the erosion of our safety and a certain confusion about what the kids are doing this week on our lawns. Life moves quickly and we move more slowly every day, and those are contradictions that we have to find a way to live with. I just want to make my art, to be in the flow state where my hands and heart and brain are working together to make something out of nothing, but the stuff piles up and I have to sell it or give it away. If I want to stay healthy and pay those bills, I need the customers that Beth and Kim deliver to my booth space. I need them to want just as much of me as I am willing to lay out before them.

The vulnerability is constant, but I do gain strength from those others around me and safety is relative. I'm content with the amount of exposure I get at the Market, and I can return home each Saturday evening with my soul intact, plus a few groceries. No one can do what I do, no one can be me. That's firmly established at this point in my life.

I'm grateful more than I can say for the opportunities for connection that I earn through my participation in the Market. After sitting taking minutes at just a few Standards Committee meetings, I am in awe of the members of this group who meet so frequently to uphold and protect our opportunity to thrive by making sure we stick with our Maker is the Seller ethic, to a fine point. They insist that all of us are consistent in our values and keep trying for greater artistry and success without losing what sets us apart from the entirety of the global marketplace. No one can be what we are collectively, either, because each one of us is held to such a high standard. We have formed the habit of looking minutely at whatever we do and we don't rush into things. When I signed the articles of incorporation as Board Chair back in the early eighties, I was scared and wondered what we had wrought. What was I thinking then?

Looking minutely is true for all of our committees. The Holiday Market folks keep the budget tight so we can all afford the show. The Sustainability Committee brought us sorting and durable flatware, and locally produced canvas totebags to replace plastic. They keep looking at every aspect of our organization to see how much more closely we can serve our values of treading lightly on the Earth and controlling our waste and enthusiasm to make sensible decisions, and they work with the Food Court Committee to find products that compost well and reduce our carbon footprint. Budget Committee, obviously working for our pocketbooks, and the sweet, gently Kareng Fund committee think about us and care for us. All of these volunteers bring their human selves to the office and share what makes us real and united in our wish to do well while we make our way.

This rare, precious center of our lives attracts a lot of attention. Everyone wants to touch and feel what we do, sense the source of the vitality that we are sustaining. It's like the Jell-O art, wondrous and simple, but complex and seductive. So we share ourselves, put it all out on display, and sometimes have to handle the over-enthusiastic response. Witness the drum circle excess. We love the drums, when they are cooking and providing a heartbeat. We hate the way the Free Speech Plaza has been twisted to allow sales of illegal and just unfortunate items that do not meet our standards and represent a threat to our safety and wellness. We work hard to find solutions to problems like this so that free speech is upheld, but the people taking advantage of the opportunity are held to account.

So when our attractiveness got the attention of a major global corporation and they selected us to serve as a background for an innovative product launch, Beth and Kim spent many, many hours discussing with them how they might present their ideas without taking advantage of us. At each step along the way, they thought carefully about what would be presented and how that would benefit us. They insisted that these folks get to know our culture and tread lightly on our sacred ground.

In short, the American Express product Serve is a new payment system designed to make spending easier for customers who aren't in the habit of using cash. To my mind, cash is the simplest way to control my finances, because I can only spend what I have, and that works for me. But I have noticed that many people have to take the extra step of going to get some cash so that they can shop at our Market, that check-writing has become an annoying task to many that they don't feel safe about (providing personal information) and that people are sometimes reluctant to go all the way across the street to use a credit card, and the occasional sale is lost. Time is moving more quickly and people have been trained to expect immediate results for everything. This program provides a way for an instant cash transaction from customer to me, without the cash.

I laugh, because cash will not go out of style in my life, but I can see the genius of these people who found a niche of society that is growing and is not well served. There are tons of outdoor markets, craft and food and food carts and festivals, all over the world, and the systems for purchasing items at them have not evolved. Artisans can use the clunky card processing systems of the past, expensive and annoying. We pay 5% on our credit card sales, and the staff spends increasing time being our processor. It's barely working, and it's time to find better ways. Let me say now that I disclaim any endorsement of any such product, and I participate out of my wish to be practical. Every Etsy seller has to have a Paypal or some such account to receive payment, some bank account or something. Nothing is new about that.

I appreciate the fact that Beth has seen the trends and is working toward a better, more sustainable group of options of which this Serve program is one. It's a little start-up of a big corporation and it may not fly, but it's a new idea that might just be a way for me to make more money more easily. It might not, but it's easy enough to try it out for the four weeks the AmEx and media folks will be on site introducing it. It won't work for everyone. You have to join up, and only members can access it, and like any online service or credit card service, you have to give them your personal information so they can identify you and keep that information secure. and it's all free, free, free, and they will even give you $15 "cash" to spend when you activate the account.

Of course I have a certain mistrust of that, but having been online in several capacities for many years now, I don't feel exposed anymore. The brazillions of people online don't notice or care about me unless they google Jell-O Art and find me there. I am no more exposed by this than by being on the bicycle chic website where candid photos of Eugene cyclists are posted. In the big giant world, I am just not important. I'm a little old lady who sells tote bags and t-shirts and baseball caps and Jell-O art and if the government wanted to come and get me and mine my brain for the keys to creativity and my solutions to global climate change, they would have already implanted that chip and put me in their gulag. Really, getting another credit card account is such a minor thing, that I signed right up.

I'm certain my trust in Beth and Kim is not misplaced. I'm fairly certain these folks trying to promote this little product are trying hard to touch us without leaving marks. Of course a thousand free tote bags are not going to help my bag sales (you can see some of mine at the right), even if I point out that they used a toxic PVC-based ink on their "eco-friendly" bags (locally printed, but not by me), and that their groovy seed tags don't identify the species and that any gardener would refrain from planting random wildflowers in their gardens. I will probably plant one, because I'm so curious to see what species they are and if they will even grow, but my healthy skepticism about any kind of "green" promotion is intact. I know just how hard it is to uphold any ideals in the face of practicality, marketing, and the big, big world.

We're in it, that world, and on this Earth Day we can stop to see how little we are, how short our lives, how giant our capacity for compromise and destruction, and how we must remain vigilant about being thoughtful, kind, and caring.

We must project outward from the heart. One of the many wise people who access Facebook, another giant that threatens everything we stand for, recently posted this online:

Live without pretending
Love without depending
Listen without defending
Speak without offending

That went on my refrigerator immediately. You can't be too careful, and you can't be too fearful. Life moves quickly, as Lynn says, it is short but it is wide. I think we can accommodate this corporate campaign without giving up even a little piece of our ideals. They want to touch us, they want what we have, but no one can have what we have. It's ephemeral. When I go, all of this construct of my life goes with me. The Jell-O may live on in perpetuity, but no one will make it like I make it.

It looks like it may be sunny tomorrow. Thank you weather, thank you so much in advance. We will gather, we will stand on the Earth (albeit covered with cement right where we stand) among the trees (which sometimes get in our way and other times provide us blissful shade), and we will enjoy the community we can touch and be a part of, but never control.

Stay calm, folks. We're juggling a lot of things right now, but we're standing solid. We can handle the attraction, we can handle the attention. On the upside, people reading the Wall Street Journal, and people living in New York City, envy us. You can't complain about that.

Change is the only constant, uncertainty is the only certainty. See you on the Park Blocks, (god willing and the creek don't rise.)

Jell-O Art Museum

Jell-O Art by the almost-famous Jell-O Artist, Diane McWhorter, of Eugene, Oregon.

I set things up at home so I could get it right. Floor to ceiling.

This is dried gelatin, to be clear. It doesn't jiggle, but it will last forever.

So What's Next?

Talk about afterglow. I don't believe I have ever packed quite so much into a day, and my body tells me to not make a habit of it. Doing Market on opening day is already a rush; it happens so hard and fast and includes everything. It no longer surprises me when I'm brought to tears by some person, some news, or some witnessed moment, because that happens every week during the Market season.

First, a big thanks to Willy, stellar friend who not only loaned me a pop-up booth, but he brought it down to the Market and took it home. It saved me from having everything wet, and helped me greatly to pack up early without causing a huge disruption. I apologized to all my neighbors but there was no way to make it to the Jell-O Show without leaving Market early, and I was too broke to skip Opening Day sales, which were heart-warming.

The supreme moment of my Market life found me on stage, where Rich Glauber effervesced and called me the Pre-Eminent Jell-O Artist in the World! I accept, though of course you know it isn't true, or is anyway built upon the foundation laid by E. Celeste LeBlanc, who took Jell-O Art to the fine art arena decades ago. She always experimented and came up with the next technique, and amazed and delighted every year. The yellow dress underneath my sculpture was gifted to the Jell-O Art Museum by her and launched my ambition for this year's show, and I owe her more than thanks.

I'm not a performer, generally, but because Rich got me up there, with the gorgeous and poised Joanie Cypress, aka Old Queen Scarlett, who graciously wore the other pair of Jell-O wings and carried the bird through the crowds amazing the populace, I tasted adulence and liked it. (Spell-check says I either want opulence or flatulence, hee hee.) That much time in the spotlight was just right.

So in mid-afternoon I loaded up the trailer and dashed home, trying to take a moment on the way to look around and feel relaxed. By the time I schlepped all of the Pudding Plops and wings and things to the Jell-O Show, it was almost opening, and the wing attachment to the sculpture was an utter fail. She fell over to the left, her feet slid out from under her, and as the crowds gathered I pushed her into place and carefully balanced things just well enough to make it. I abandoned the full display and wore the pink wings myself, which turned out to be the perfect choice. There was a bit of crackling now and then as people got hooked on the various snags of the wing edges, but the crowd wasn't too crushing and it gave people a chance to touch and feel the Jell-O and they really wanted to do that.

I had a glorious moment, tears again. I stood resplendent in Hope's dress, with my apron added, winged up and holding the bird aloft, while being interviewed about my Jell-O mythos. I was well prepared to hold forth, having written about it for years, but looking out upon a packed circle of smiles, cameras, and admiring, amazed fans, I felt I had reached an artistic peak I may never reach again. Full approval, what a concept.

A day or two ago I googled Jell-O Art and found some of mine, but under Jell-O Artists I did not find myself, so I recognized a goal to be a famous Jell-O Artist, not just locally, but googly. Alas, pride and hubris will not get me there. I told the Emerald photographer to make me famous, and he utterly failed to include me in his photo post, although you can see my sculpture in the background of one of his wonderful photos. Kim took photos at the Market, so maybe those will get me there, or I will have to find another way. It's time.

Self promotion is a double-edged sword, but I feel a confidence that might just propel me to take one more step toward claiming my hard work and delightful creative energy. It's not just about the life-long slog of doing things that satisfies us, but moments now and then when we accept credit for what we have done. I felt that at the Historical Society panel, and yesterday, and once in awhile when I am thanked for some small thing. One of my goals for a long time has been to be one of the Weekly's Happening People, I guess it would be on the merits of the many clever and uplifting t-shirts I have made over the decades, but it's hard to justify promoting myself into that, since I have done those things mostly for profit, not really out of that much altruism. My giving has not been active like true Samaritans (spell-check say Martians) and I have not done it as a selfless volunteer like so many.

They would all say similar things, though, that they get back much more than they are given, etc. It's a form of grace to be at least somewhat self-effacing. I can see that because of my strong Catholic and anti-feminist indoctrination as a child (Sunday always still brings Catholic thoughts, especially in the morning when I am supposed to be at Mass) I am confused about what is truly saintly and have stops built in to keep me from pride and satisfaction.

Saints aren't supposed to even let people know how good they try to be. Women and saints are supposed to support, feed, and stay in the background. If you say you are good, you are automatically less good. You will be arrogant, you will be selfish, you will be greedy and you will be a fool.

Ha! I stopped being afraid to be a fool one Hallowe'en when I dressed as one with that Bali mask in previous photos of the sculpture, and went around my neighborhood strewing writing and inspiring quotes and craziness. I should dig up that essay I wrote about it, and post it sometime. At any rate, I can play the Fool. This is another gift from Jell-O Art.

Yet when I stood up yesterday in those two great moments, I did not feel the least bit foolish. I felt honored. And all the honor came from others, from watchers and people I didn't even know. So there is something in there to build upon. Honoring oneself for one's accomplishments can be done in a saintly way. Service can be done without self-sacrifice, and a big part of that is acceptance. Accepting that we are all doing these good works all the time, all promoting what we think is important, and all feeling the appreciation and lack of it that comes in any normal day.

One thing I keep returning to as I watch my fellow Market artisans and try to hear how they tick, is that we are all so very similar and generally unaware of that. We all tend to be overly self-involved in our struggles and isolate ourselves in our romantic idea that it is me, just me against the giant and regularly cruel world. Then in our contradiction we gather together, not in competition (though of course we sometimes feel that) but in cooperation, each one bringing a tiny piece of what becomes the essential whole, that is so much greater than what any one of us could do or be.

It's an amazing event we put on so dependably, and maybe because we are getting old now we can take the step of truly seeing it, and ourselves as we are. Forty two years of Market, and twenty-three years of Jell-O Art. That is, in the giant world, just about nothing.

But in our little world, good heavens, that is something.

Thank you Saturday Market, and thank you Jell-O. *takes a bow*

What's Jell-O?

I took one of the Jell-O flowers over to Seven Stars, that wonderful preschool on the corner. I am happy to report that NONE of the children had any idea what Jell-O is.

They're only three-year-olds, but still, it is refreshing to know that they haven't been totally consumer-washed already. Of course, now I have introduced them to it, in a way.

So I'm calling it gelatin around them, just to keep things pure.

I got all trussed up in the wings to pay them a visit but forgot it is Spring Break and they were closed for a few days. I see they are there today so maybe this afternoon I'll try it again. Something really fun about going over there as a fairy or angel or strange old lady who thinks she is an angel...they just take things at face value.

I was trying to get pictures the other day, all dressed up, and as I was heading across the street I saw this old guy who I've often seen walking. I felt I had to explain, so I asked him to take the picture, but he was a little reluctant to get too close...so the pictures weren't useful except for letting me know that the outfit I had on wouldn't really work, and the bottom set of wings doesn't hang right at all. Need a better plan.

I've been trying to come up with a good t-shirt design for the show, time's running out. The theme of a toast brings things to mind, bubbles and champions and such. The one thing I keep getting stuck on is what Ruby Tony Darcy said when she got her terminal diagnosis a few years ago. Yep, "I'm toast."

But I can't really go there. It occurred to me this week, rather belatedly, that I was going for kind of a self-portrait at first. My Jell-O Art has always been some kind of personal statement of progress I've made in the last year, or what I've been thinking about, and instead of my original plan to have the figure (me?) emerge from the tree trunk, like Daphne, and metamorphose into some kind of winged creature, I made a big shell and now she is emerging from the sea.

With the trauma of the tsunami heaped upon our personal Eugene tragedy, it has been hard to hear references to Mother Ocean, words like unfathomable and swept away and other expressions we normally use a lot. I didn't intend to reference it at all, was just thinking about the classic picture of Venus emerging from the sea standing on a scallop shell, by Botticelli. I thought making the shell might be easy and fun, and the tableau needed something in the center to hide the ugly feet. So I made the shell, and she will now stand on it, with waves coming in.

Now the feet won't be hidden, I'll have to cover them somehow. Was thinking of making them some stripey socks but will probably just dress them with real socks. I don't know yet, and that's beside the point.

The point is I rather intuitively made an opulent, transformative ode to death and rebirth. I guess I am gloriously emerging from the sea of woe to live on earth in the glory of Jell-O. Even though in reality I am somewhat of a dumpy old woman, in Jell-O Art Land I am Venus herself, coming to spread love and joy to all.

So for the t-shirt, I will try to brainstorm on uplifting wings, joy and transformation and effervescence. Can't focus on death and acceptance and don't want to glorify alcohol, just want to be a bubble of foam washing up on the shores of creativity...

I'll draw something soon. The Radar Angels effervesce once again!

A Toast to Jell-O!

Here's the poster for the show, created I'm pretty sure by Jennifer Andrews. Stellar use of colors, so many colors of shiny metal. Very sparkly too, and I might have to copy those bubbles somehow. I have no idea what I'm doing for the t-shirt design.

Getting the sculpture finished, though. Set it all up to see what needs more work, mainly the stuff on the bottom and mounting the mask.

I put it on a stick, so you can hold it up in front of your face.

While wearing a set of wings, which will be removeable from the figure and worn around the show, I hope.










Have to get the bird mounted somehow, too. Love Jell-O Art weekends, that is for sure.

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.