Awright, already -- i did it, slogged through all the tacky yard art entries -- ALL of them, several times, and even read each of over 300 comments sent to or from your host carol wallace -- and i can say with great certainty that the art of yard art is alive and sickeningly well in the world! congratulations, y'all, on bad jobs done well!
the judging was tough -- lucky i did it before reading your suggestions, or i might have been swayed to change my mind on some of them. i sincerely wish it was possible to give awards to 95% of the entries (the others were so tasteless as to upset even ME -- LOL!) ... but here goes, with a few select comments (i took notes as i scrolled):
and by the way, carol wallace had a priceless quote in one of her responses, even very funny and deep when taken out of context: "Good yard art shouldn't bring headaches." ain't that PRECIOUS!!?!
anyway, my selections may not be yours, but hey -- that's what opinions are all about, huh? better (or worse) next year!
First Place in the Kids' (not tacky) Gardens Area: Jimmy Mazar's Tin Man. comment: wanna dance? no, probably dances like al gore... kinda stiff
First Place, The Nice Stuff: It was a tie. really, between Rosemary Rizzo's Topiary Flamingo, Maggie Ross's Plant Sculpting, and Robert Canterbury's "Found Objects from the Shipyard". the winner would have to be, I guess, the topiary flamingo. barely, and just because of the "mixed media" of flamingo, plants, and etc. by the way, yard art DOES include weird pruning exercises... edward scissorshands, look out! and i wish Maggie Ross's cobbled hand was in this division...pretty nice stuff there. also wish Mary Stallard's shot of the Driftwood Dragon in Virginia Beach was in this category -- it's worth a trip to Virginia to me to photograph -- really!
First Place, Pretty Tacky: Maggie Ross's Cobbled Hand, followed closely Debra Teachout-Teashon's broken stepping stone..-- both were home-made, and showed a sense of worth and use while being creative with throw-away stuff. also liked Fran Higgins' Dog Team (noses to butts), and Maggie Mcfadzens's boot planters -- real stinkers!
First Place, Terrible Tacky (this one was HARD to narrow down to even the best (worst) ten or twelve): Loved Sandy Steiger's ruttin' reindeer, Rene Buckley's park entrance (the Victorians INVENTED tacky, right after quirky), Robert Canterbury's piano garden (i agree with some writers that "market art" is kinda fishy, hits a bad note with me, but i also suspect that the whimsical nature makes it
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