In The Valley
November 2015
Ink Drawing, Photograph, Digital Color
Category: Media and Misc.
Photo, Digital, Multi Media, Performance, and work difficult to categorize.
Last Spring, the Whoop Dee Doo crew swept into Cincinnati to create something wonderful. Much like a group of migrant carnival workers, they appeared in our city, and in just a few short days created something magical, terrifying, and community oriented.
The Whoop Dee Doo crew collaborated with a handful of students from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, as well as the Lighthouse Youth Program and dancers from Los Embajadores Peruanos.
The performance shown in the video (link below) was carried out five times in the course of one evening for live audiences.
Other than a seemingly endless nosebleed (the result of breathing “fog” over and over for six hours) and a little neck cramping, this was some of most enjoyable work I have ever done. (Pssst…I’m the head on the wall). Here’s a close up:
FULL VIDEO:
Recently I’ve been pimping myself out as a freelance artist. I took on a fireplace restoration project, the image above being the final product.
At the start of this project, the fireplace was covered in sponge-painted purple and white faux marbling. A true gem. Unfortunately, I do not have a “before” picture because I’m only just a fool, but the photo below is a pretty close representation of the surface we were dealing with.
With the help of a scraper, steel wool, and some all-natural stripper (3 cheers for a ready-made joke), all 4 million layers of paint were removed. The stripper is called Soy Gel, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is stripping something indoors, because there are no fumes (a somewhat unusual smell, but no fumes), and it can be cleaned up easily with water and a sponge.
With all the paint removed, I discovered that the true surface or the hearth and mantle were stone, and the firebox was metal. After cleaning and sanding the stone, I sealed it with a high-gloss polyurethane. The firebox was then painted with one coat of black oil paint, and then hand-painted with turquoise and yellow oil paints to create the final design.
One last shot…ignore the fire engine.
Side project bowls. “Inappropriate Prayers” series.
Side project dishes. “Harlot” series. You can buy them…if you want. Just contact me.
The UC Ceramics Club is having a Valentine’s Day sale on the 4th floor of the DAAP building, starting February 11th. The sale will run for the next three days unless we sell out. So, come buy a plate, mug, or bowl for someone you love…or for yourself.
There will be other work with more loving phrases available as well, made by people who are not me.
The UC Ceramics Department finally has a blog! Everyone in the studio can contribute to the blog (Grads, Undergrads, Alum, Instructors). We are just getting started, but it should be pretty sweet, and have some good information about upcoming art events, new work, residencies, and ceramics-news in general.
Check it out here: We Make Ceramics
Just outside of Coleraine Township, in greater Cincinnati, there is something eerie and magical. That something is what high school students around the city have deemed “Marshmallow Lake”. It’s supposed to be haunted because someone dumped a body back there, but it’s one of those things that nobody really knows. You know what else nobody knows? What the hell this “lake” is made out of. You can walk on it. It’s spongy and white, powdery in some places, sticky in others, and if you take a piece of it with you (I’ve taken samples home in bags before) it melts into an off-white sort of pudding.
There are 2 parts to marshmallow lake, there is the lake part, and what I call “the caves”. It sort of looks like some kind of industrial stuff was dumped into a pond and they missed, leaving the surrounding area mallow-fied too.
This is the Google Earth shot of it. You can see how the “cave” parts are kind of up at the top on the right, and then this marshmallow stuff kind of runs down a hill and pools into a lake. I don’t have any pictures of the “lake” part, but I would encourage everyone to go check it out, DURING THE DAY. It’s at the end of Lick Road in Coleraine, kind of behind Rumpke dump (which really makes me question it).
I DO however have some shots of the caves. They are weird because they were for an assignment for an art foundations class. I’m not a photographer, I’m not into weird conceptual photography, I just thought it was a funny project idea so please don’t judge the photography too harshly, just look at the setting. That is important.
Also: This is not me in the photos. Just saying.
I know it looks like rock in the picture, but I swear it’s all spongy!
It’s hard to tell in the pictures, but the caves go down for pretty much forever. They got really tight and we didn’t have a light to take with us, and the marshmallow stuff crumbles away pretty easy….aaaaannnd there were bats.
I honestly think it looks like the moon. I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen the alleged footage.
So yeah, long story short, this is an awesome place that everyone should check out. If you’re into photography or even short film making it’s a great place to shoot because it’s so unbelievably surreal.
JAIMI RYAN 