Deeshes in a Ditch

  From the Bellville Clock:                                      

“Deeshes in a Ditch”

         If you, reader, are ever fortunate enough to attend or come upon Installation Art,  which is a genre of art that incorporates every day or found materials into a site specific environmental space, I hope you will take a moment to thank the forces that be for guiding you to the exact intersection of authentic art and ordinary life. Thus was my experience of late while driving down the far-back country roads outside the little village of Bellville, Ohio.  One might simply miss the extraordinary by not keeping aware of the possibilities of the moment, for there in the ditch of the gravel road were perfectly placed dishes, or soup bowls to be exact.  Not one, which would have been a pinnacle in itself, but a fairly evenly spaced row of six bowls! They were white in value, but had images of rural barns, pastures, wheat fields, cows, and even a lake glazed onto them.  Their pale cylindrical shapes against the greening ditch made for an intimation-of-the-infinite composition that the likes of cubist Picasso and surrealist Miro might rise up from their eternal repose and salute or at least hurl their pallets.  Most bowls were facing up but one was flipped over and so solitary as to draw attention and hidden meaning.  Who is the creative genius behind this “Installation?”  Where could I find the anonymous lover of found art who brought the likes of NYC expressivist art to the back rural byways of Ohio?  After much driving and diner dining I landed the following secure and silhouetted interview with the creator behind the “Deeshes in a Ditch.”

An interview with the artist:

Why the spelling of dishes as “deeshes”?  

In this part of the country, dishes are pronounced “deeshes”.  I wanted to make the installation very personal to the people of Bellville.  I wanted to shock them out of their mundane lives.

What was the motive for the installation?

Deeshes in the Ditch is the result of years of thinking about the role the food industry plays in the United States in the feeding of Americans and the world.  Currently our food is grown, processed, and distributed by capitalists which causes millions of people to starve in this country at this very moment.  Billions are spent on food stamps, but this is not enough to prevent children from going to bed hungry.  Even the free lunch program, where millions of children are given breakfast and lunch at school, is not enough to address the suffering of millions of children on a daily basis.  Schools should also make dinners available. Would it be too extreme to implement communal dining rooms like in Mao’s China?  Even when food is readily available many children especially poor children overeat and become obese leading to diabetes which is predicted to become

an epidemic in the near future.   Poor children do not exercise because they have no access to sports.  These children sit at home in front of computers and television eating snack foods.  This is a tragedy beyond description and it’s all the fault of our capitalist system.

What is the meaning behind dishes in ditches?

Dishes, specifically soup bowls, are carefully placed in rural farmlands around Bellville to show the connection food has to the soil.  Children are not aware that our food comes from the soil and they do not see the importance of climate changes and our environment.  The “Deeshes in Ditches” can also be interpreted as the ease of obtaining nourishment.  When the bowl is placed with the rim up it indicates the need for food to be as easy to obtain as placing a bowl in a ditch.  No one should be forced to take time out of their busy lives to prepare food.  It is too time-consuming causing poor children to have to eat high fat foods instead of nutritionally prepared food like Michelle Obama fixes for her family.  When the bowl is placed down the implication refers to the millions of starving children not only in this country but around the world who do not have access to food because capitalists demand money for their products.  I am not talking about the billions of economic aid given to poor countries by the United States or the numerous times Americans have sent food aid, but I am talking about the immorality of the food industry demanding profits.  This has to stop.  No one should make a profit by selling food.  Food should be readily available without effort to everyone.  If someone becomes obese the food industry should be held accountable.  The government must become more involved in the distribution of food in this country.  We also have an obligation to feed the world.  Only in this way can we end hunger.  

The pattern on the bowls is a rural scene with fields and lake.  Was this deliberate?

Absolutely.  The rural farm and lake are where our food comes from.

Will you be placing dishes in ditches in other parts of the country?

Yes, but only if I can find the right dish pattern.  I had the idea for “Deeshes in the Ditch” for years but could not find the appropriate dish pattern.  

Why are you keeping the placement of the dishes secret?

I want people to unexpectedly come upon the installation.  This is how hunger effects people.  It just happens without warning and unexpectedly.  Unlike communist countries, all of us living in a capitalist system are prone to starvation. It is a myth that communist countries such as the Soviet Union and Red China experienced massive starvation.  

What Art are you currently working on?

I am currently installing my latest art, “Bolsheviks in a Barn” within dilapidated abandoned barns on another undisclosed rural road in Richland County.

Why do you insist on anonymity?

Names identify individuals and I do not want to be an individual.  We are all one.  By working as an anonymous artist I am one with the world.  Drawbacks do exists such as not receiving the accolades I deserve.

End of Interview

         It is suggestive that Post-Modernist artists such as these would indeed become famous if we only knew their identities. The immeasurable loss of countless individuals to the archives of art history is indeed tragic to the sense of who we as a species have become.  We concluded our interview and continued our discussion on compositional strategies and some of the often overlapping boundaries of placement and arrangement in this clandestine artist’s upcoming, sure to be exciting, installation of “Bolsheviks in a Barn.”  So, keep your eyes open as you drive along the country roads outside of Bellville, for you never know what incredible apparition you may happen upon.

By Rogue Reporter
January 21, 2018