Joys Of Jello

I forgot to make coffee this morning. For some of you, that would not be a big deal, but in my 25+ years of drinking the wakey juice, I have never, ever forgotten to brew our mugged lightning. I’m afraid of what this could portend. What hole in the time-space continuum has been torn asunder?

Speaking of the Pentecostal whiskey (what some people call a cuppa joe), I am so particular about my cream, I annoy myself. Anyone who has been with me during the cream ritual can attest to my finickyness. The color has to be exactly right or else it ruins the experience; right in between Pantone #18-1160 (“Monk’s Robe”) or # 18-0950 (“Cathay Spice”). A delicate blend of Half & Half for the base note and then a smooth finish with Silk, a soy creamer, for the top note. Trust me, I get plenty of eye-rolling and verbal jabs, but folks, I am not going to cave in to peer pressure. I prefer my coffee a certain way and all the mocking will not make me conform!

Alrighty then, just a micro-rant from the Tanty Troll.

This week brought the opening of the Saturday Market, the official start to the 2010, er, Z0L0 selling season, and Easter. (If you look closely at the photo of the Market, you might notice the exasperation of the vendor in the middle booth!)

One of my favorite Saturday Market customer stories, told to me by a pregnant woman about her four year-old son, happened just before Halloween. Her belly, round as a pumpkin, inspired many questions from her little boy such as, “What’s in there?”

As a groovy, open style mom, she did her best to explain (without traumatizing him) that his little sister was growing inside her womb. Later, distracted by the Halloween festivities, they were carving jack-o-lanterns. Inspired by the much discussed baby-naming topic, the little boy asked if he could name his pumpkin? “Of course,” she said, and given a little time, he finally announced his choice.

“Uterus,” he said. “I’m going to name my pumpkin Uterus.”

I just about died laughing.

Which leads me to my long-held theory of art...Between nature-made and man-made, there are two basic shapes. Need I spell them out? They are everywhere I tell you, from the Washington Monument to Georgia O’Keefe’s famous flowers, to the Empire State Building to, to, to jello art and a gift I received on Saturday.

A friend of mine, who has her master’s degree in art, hinted that she painted a picture for my birthday. She told me a compelling story about the day she created it and the inspiration behind it. There were mentions of ballerinas, an afternoon we had spent together visiting, and a few other personal ingredients that had me anticipating the unveiling.

It took place on Saturday. At the booth. She showed up all shiny and sparkly, a soft combination of pinks and grays, images of sugarplums and fairies and ballerinas dancing in my head. The package was wrapped in cream colored newsprint, a bright red ribbon daring me to pull. I took one end of the red ribbon and gently dislodged it, the paper falling away like a robe to the ground, revealing the content.

There were no ballerinas, no sugarplums or fairies. Instead, there was a vibrant circular motion of green, thick paint applied and then scraped with a palette knife in fluid motion. Van Gogh loved to layer his paint, and it turns out, so does my friend.

At first, I didn’t know what to say, the painting I had created in my mind, so different from the one on the canvas. It took me a second to adjust and my friend was standing there, holding it, waiting for my reaction. She slowly rotates the painting 360 degrees so that I can see for myself which angle I prefer. At every turn, I see something different. Finally, having reached where we started, she asked me if I wanted to know what it was? “Of course.”

“My uterus. I painted a self-portrait of my uterus.”

And then it got very quiet.

What do you say when someone presents you with a portrait of their uterus?

But, I love my friend, and I embraced the idea very quickly. I noted that it was painted green, the color of healing and love, the fourth chakra, the heart. Things that are green represent life, growth and creativity.

Uterus. The word itself triggers the tittering part of me and I get the giggles. The word feels forbidden and off limits to conversation and public display. But the word womb or belly, which is what it means, feels quite natural. The uterus is a part of the female body that provides structural integrity and support.

The uterus falls under the jurisdiction of the second chakra, the energetic part of us that has to do with creating. Neither my friend nor I have human babies (do kitties count?), but we are both artists and I understand her impetus to express the process by which her old stuff was sluffed off, commemorating that a new cycle in her life is beginning.

Letting go is a big deal. Making womb for something new means feeling empty for awhile and that takes courage. How many of us are afraid of that hollow feeling, filling ourselves up with food, alcohol, clutter, company, etc., just so we can avoid being alone with ourselves in all that space? Sometimes we are asked to let go of something before we know what’s coming next. Scary!

As a part of the embracing, with her permission, I showed my friends at the Saturday Market who popped in for a visit, “Hey, look at the portrait of a uterus I just got for my birthday.” Nobody was really surprised that A) I have a friend that would paint that subject matter or B) that I’m the kind of person who would receive such a painting.

Now, on to the topic of Jell-o. Z0L0 King invited Groom and I to the 22nd annual Jell-o Art Show and Tacky Food Buffet on Saturday after Market. The half life of Jell-o art is not very long, so it was a one day installation from 5-8pm.

The poster did not lie. The Maude Kerns Art Center did indeed put on a “tacky food buffet.” If you want to enlarge the photos for details, which I highly recommend, especially for the close up of the frankfurter dish or for the specifics of the poster, simply click on it, then hit the back arrow to return to the blog.

I’m intrigued. Besides chopped frankies, what is protruding? Is that cheese, spaghetti or worms? How are the Oscar Meyers hemorrhaging strands of stringy things? Apropos to Eugene, the hard boiled eggs are tie-dyed and colored out of their shells.

As for the art, there were entries that well, looked like Jell-o. But there were also entries that did not. Can you believe these lamps were created from reduced gelatin? Z0L0 King caught me on the beach bunnies. “Where’s the Jell-o?” he challenged. “Huh? Is it in the chairs?” No. “The blue surf?” No. “Um, the marshmallow bunnies?” No. It was the sand! One person thought out of the box, literally, and used Jell-o without any water. Clever.

At the end of the day, when the creamed corn and goldfish crackers have been consumed, when the flowers have been put in a vase, and the Uterus portrait hung, I think the toy soldier entry says it best, “Make Jell-o, not war.”