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Yard Art: No Splendor on this Grass

© Carol Wallace

My next door neighbor kept a pink flamingo on his front lawn. In my childish innocence, I thought this was the height of chic, and couldn't understand why my mother, in that disapproving way that mothers have, always shook her head at it. But we learn through conditioning, and enough of those head shakes convinced me that pink flamingos were a bad thing.

In my maturity, I realized what the problem was. My neighbor didn't go far enough. A single, fading pink plastic flamingo is merely a timid attempt to capture the exotic. To make a statement, you need a whole flock of pink flamingos. Suddenly what was once an icon of bad taste becomes a flamboyant statement of individuality.

Of course the neighbors will still shake their heads in disapproval.

Lawn ornaments have come a long way since the classic statuary of the last century. No more marble sculptures; instead we have concrete imitations, somewhat distorted in the reproduction process. Standing in front of a small suburban tract house, instead of Versailles, which is in more appropriate scale, they look not grand, but displaced, as if awaiting someone to direct them back home. And admit it now--no one believes that you really have Michelangelo's David in your front yard.

Of course other kinds of grandeur are equally problematic, as this bunny sculpture illustrates. Good garden sculpture is not only appropriate; it suits the scale of its setting.

Gargoyles are another garden cliche. Now, I happen to like gargoyles. There is one perched atop my monitor as I type. The trouble with garden gargoyles is that the ones most people can afford are so poorly done. Take a look at a real gargoyle from the cathedral of Notre Dame and then look at a typical yard-goyle. He has lost detail, become softened--almost cute. No longer is he a fierce guardian of the property; he has been reduced to the status of mere lawn boy.

Gnomes are popular as modern icons of myth. They are also easy to overdo. Yet most people seem to feel that a single gnome will get lonesome, and so buy them in flocks, like flamingos.

Somehow 50 massed pink flamingoes have tongue-in-cheek-chic. They are identical; none more beguiling than the other -- a clear statement of purposeful excess. Fifty massed gnomes, all of different sizes and characters, are more like an extended family gone wrong.

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