firing around the clock and exhibition conception

firing 15 at a time, the dull slip transforms into ringing ceramic

The firing of the vessels that were excavated from the banks of the Saline is going well; we are on target to produce 65.  The process has been quite long as slip casting and firing requires multiple repetitive steps.  But we appear to be on track to have all 65 vessels fired for the upcoming exhibition.  Each vessel will represent a shopping cart and be illustrated with an image of a cart and a co-ordinate of a specific location where a cart was found on the Boneyard or Saline.  The vessels will be part of a scale representation of the Saline creek at the exhibition and act as markers pinpointing the locations of carts.  The vessels will also be gifts to those who adopt-a-cart and help us fund the upcoming exhibition and subsequent illustrated map/booklet.  We will be launching a Kickstarter campaign on Sunday the 31st of July with all the details.

prototype of illustrated vessel

The Allman family has been generous enough to allow us to have the exhibition at their fathers former auto body shop.  We recently met with Lisa, the daughter of the late Mr. Allman, and she seemed as excited as we are to be part of the project.  Thank  you Lisa!  Below are some conceptual drawings of the exhibition which will feature video projections, a sound installation, the canoes used to remove the carts, and reproductions of the vessel found in the banks of the Saline.  The exhibition will have both indoor and outdoor elements, the indoor portion will only be accessible visually through a line that stretches the entire front facade of Allman's.  Viewers will have to look through the line that represents the saline to see the exhibition inside.  The outdoor portion of the exhibition will be a sculpture garden made from shopping carts that we have transformed into something like gabion baskets, but only sort of.  There is much to to but we are very happy to do it.

Allmans Boneyard and, Saline is the official, title of the show

From debris emerges form, representation reproduced

The mold making process and the original form

The dig on the Saline unveiled a large cache of  ceramic debris.  We were fortunate to have gathered enough pieces to reconstruct a complete version of a strange but beautiful vessel .  We still do not know what we have found but have decided to reproduce the form once for every cart we have either removed or mapped.  The method of reproduction is similar to the way in which the original vessel was reproduced; a ceramic process called slip-casting.  Each vessel will be marked with the GPS coordinate of a particular site on the Saline and a line drawing of a cart and will be used as a marker for a large scale map at the upcoming exhibition.

  

The form begins to multiply

                         
                        
                         The Saline presents, form for representation, and reproduction

A field trip to the great rivers and microscopic views of macroinvertebrates

Atop the research center

Our work in the Boneyard and Saline creeks has uncovered many questions; one of them being:  What is the quality of the water and the ecosystems that depend on it?  We have observed for ourselves during our month on the Saline that there is apparently a great deal of diversity there despite the heavy utilitarian use and abuse of the creek.  The Saline and other creek/ditches represent some of the only continuous wildlife habitat in an agriculturally dominant landscape and a good diversity of fauna can be found there.  This fact might go against the popular notions of the Saline that tend to consider the creek as a ditch; signifying waste receptacle.  These "ditches" were built and are maintained by drainage districts funded by public tax dollars but are essentially private property.  We believe there is a great opportunity to both maintain the utilitarian integrity of the Saline, and similar water ways,while maintaining habitat and creating public access.

Vera and the scientific method

We took the opportunity to visit the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to learn a little bit about water health by way of Macro-invertebrates.  Macro-invertebrates are organisms that can be seen by the naked eye and are used by scientists to determine the health of a particular stream or river.  They are an important link of the food chain much like plankton are in the ocean.  We were given a hands on tutorial on the procedure of collecting and sorting macro-invertebrates and detailing stream composition and flow.  Before we sloshed around in a small creek that Vera our instructor named after the abundant ceramic debris found there, we were able to view macro-invertebrate specimens under the microscopes in the lab. The unseen are nevertheless endlessly fascinating. In the creek we surveyed, we found only Sideswimmers or Amphipoda, a small shrimp like creature,  but Vera stressed the fact that late June was pushing the limit of the time frame for finding macros as most have already gone through the larval stage of their metamorphoses and are either pupating or have emerged from the water.  We anticipate putting the Saline on the register for macro monitored creeks in the Fall.



                       sideswimmers were spared, from scientific inquire, we threw back our catch 


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52 cart pick-up in the Weiss family pick-up

The cart pile has reached 52 and for now the removal of carts form the Boneyard and Saline Creeks is done.  We have encountered a tremendous amount of support for the project thus far and would like to continue to express gratitude to those who have made it possible.  Andrew, Christa, and their son Christian were kind enough to lend their Ford Ranger pick-up and allow us to pile it high with rusty shopping carts, compost, and water tanks and for this we cannot thank you enough.  Sumimasen, Arigato gozaimasu

               
                             The Weiss family, lends us the ford ranger now, fifty-two carts picked up

last loads and exhibition sites

The last haul using the Weiss family Ranger

The end of June brought our cart collection to 52 and the bulk of retrieval is finished although we could easily spend another month collecting carts from the entire 12 or so miles of the Saline creek.  Hopefully we can continue the work in the fall but,we must begin the next phase of our project as the exhibition is planned for the end of August; our cart collection is large and too is the work ahead.  

We have been scouting for exhibition spaces and have found a few that would work nicely.  The first is at Vine and and University (The Cunningham Site) and is a space connected to the old Blockbuster; the original Cunningham Ave. literally dead ends at the door of the space.  The other space is on the split of Main street and Springfield; the current location of the defunct Allman Auto Repair the former location of the Flat Iron Building which was destroyed by fire in the 1940's.  Both sites have connections to Urbana's water arteries.  The first location has an outdoor space that is positioned directly above the Boneyard and allows for SW and NE views of the channel and is very likely a lot created by the channelization of the creek.  The second location (Allman's) was created by relocating the Boneyard 500 ft North to its current course thus creating viable piece of real estate on which to build the Flat Iron Building.  Perhaps the Allman site, or the "Wedge", has the more interesting subtext as it represents the human necessity and drive to manipulate the environment for practical as well as aesthetic reasons.  

The Cunningham space is to the right of the electricity meters

Sadly no longer an option

To our great disappointment, the Cunningham site (above) will not be possible as while i was making this entry I heard from the Realtor who will not accept our offer of $800.00 for a single months rent in August.  It is difficult to convince business people to accept the fact that our endeavor is not commercial and thus the price per square foot should not be based on the assumption that space equals profit.  Sadly our $800.00 is not worth the hassle.  So be it, the space remains empty.

The next potential site

Burch Kaiser won't budge, the future is the Landing Pad, Starwalt is our man