September 3, 2007

Yard Art. It May Involve Eggs.

This is an interesting article about yard art.

It tells of one homeowner in litigation after his yard art was deemed litter, another who moved across country after his art was decried by unappreciative co-citizenry, and a third who survived neighbors' complaints about sanitation when they got a gander at her version of yard art.

Many neighborhoods have an eccentric homeowner with non-traditional yard stylings. Some are seasonal, others permanent installations. We all know where they live, those Yard Artists. One may be glad, understandably, to not live next door.

Let's talk about the female Yard Artist, Rebecca Pickens. Here's a clip of her 30 seconds, quoted from the above-linked article:
When Rebecca Pickens moved into her Olivette house a few years ago, she said she despaired that her small backyard looked like everyone else's. "It just wasn't my style," she said. "It just wasn't me."

So she built a human-sized bird's nest, complete with ceramic eggs. A post next to the nest reads "2014," the year Pickens' son will leave for college.

"This is my empty nest," she said.
That's when the beer snorted out my nose. (Having survived my own empty nest debacle, I've earned the right to snort when I see any bizarre behavior relating to nests, particularly empty ones. I'm certain others have snorted at me.)

This woman, this artist, Rebecca, built a nest in her backyard... to human scale... put some eggs in it... but calls it empty. Huh. I want to know how large the eggs are and the square footage of the nest. Is it up in a tree? There is no mention of comfortable seating or nesting functionality or structural integrity. The article is woefully lacking photos.

The pièce de resistancé, the icing on the cake, froth on the latte: a post to represent a point SEVEN years in the future when she assumes she will be graced with empty nest status! Pffft. She's an empty nest amateur.

Part of me wishes someone had warned me to get busy planning so far in advance for that delicate time when the fledgling flew and life irrevocably changed whether I was ready or not.

Another part of me thinks she's just batshit crazy.

.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, very interesting article. An empty nest? Human size? In the backyard? I can think of so many other things she could've spent her time doing! LOL.

Syd said...

Batshit. And trust me, I *know* batshit.

nina michelle said...

Yard art has become well... an art form in my girlfriend's neighborhood. While I am there I will take a picture of the giant teal paper mache human head with the plant coming out of the top and send it to you.

sporksforall said...

I like me some yard art. My great unhappiness with that article was the lack of pictures. A nest would look awesome in your yard. A nice contrast to the sheds...

Middle Girl said...

I'm going with the batshit contingent.

Me. Here. Right now. said...

I agree with the batshit crazy, based on everyone's experience kicking children out to fly on their own--it doesn't seem to run on the parents' timeline at all. Making note to self.

Gina said...

This kind of crap is right up eb's alley!

It's ART and it is sacred. It is human expression, and it is NOT to be judged.

elswhere said...

Gina read my mind! I wanna hear what eb has to say about this installation.

Anonymous said...

Ah...me public...

I never said art was not to be judged but telling someone to throw away their art because YOU don't like or understand it it is tad bit self-centered.

I can't stand the stupid, dumbshit Homo Depot lawn ornaments some people put in their yards (and don't even get me started on the light-up, little baby Jesus nativity crap around Christmas) but I don't go around asking people to remove those things. I wouldn't put that 'art' in my yard but it doesn't hurt me that they seem to think that stuff is cute or that Little Baby Jesus will send them to heaven because he's all lit up on their lawn.

As long as the art doesn't harm anyone, who cares? In this case, if the art brings down property values then it does harm people so it should be removed.

I, of course, would prefer to have neighbors who arted up their houses as opposed to the s a m e f u c k i n g h o u s e a f t e r h o u s e a f t e r h o u s e.

'Good' or 'bad', art makes life infinitely more interesting. The nest lady can move next door to us.

~eb

chapin said...

I'll go along with batshit. She only lives four hours away from you all. Too bad they made her clean it up or I would have requested you all go take pictures. I bet we could have made good $$ on them. :-)

Lee said...

I'd totally do something like a giant bird's nest in our yard...J has endured a giant fiberglass leopard, plastic school buses, mannequin feet and god knows what else in our yards, in the name of yard art, over the years...I think it's batshit, but fun batshit

Anonymous said...

Long live the batshit art people of this world!

Let's see...in his day who was also considered batshit...hmmmm...let me see...Gina? Got any ideas?

Trish said...

Everyday when I take my son to school, we pass a house that has a monument in the front yard in honor of their heroic ex-dog. The painted dog statue sits upon a painted earth on a large pedestal surrounded what looks like an empty fountain decorated with painted dolphins. But that's not enough. No. There are little yard shit things (I've never really paid attention to exactly what they are) all around the monument, corralled by a little fence.

And they wonder why their house is still on the market.