apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

(I ever live somewhere with a lawn that size)

only if it was architecturally apropos to the home, or it was within a sculpture garden setting. These two examples are rather unfortunate. There's something similar to the orange tree in our old neighborhood. A guy shellacked a dead tree, put it by the side of the road, put in a cross branch and mounted his mailbox on it. In the V of the tree, he plunked a wire planter basket. It is all in keeping with his western theme, which looks odd in a poorer southern suburb, ya know?

i seem to remember walking by a painted/sculpted tree like this outside the museum school.

The examples are not good. The sculptures are not the right scale for what seem like small front lawns. Plus, they just don't work. The perfectly ordinary-looking houses behind them would make anything that size look like kitsch.

A house in the neighborhood near a previous job of mine had a 8-foot bronze sculpture of a headless giant. It was (is) kind of a "transitional" area, so it was merely odd and not freaky. Might depend more on the neighborhood than on the sculpture itself.

I never got the nerve to hop out of my car, climb up and stick my head on it, and have someone take a picture. Hmmm. It is a Friday today, and i've had a lot of caffeine....

There are sculptures similar to the orange tree popping up all over my neighborhood. Some are on the ground, some are hanging from other trees. They started showing up a few years ago and I still can't decide if I really like them.

I spent last weekend in Bridgehampton, where there are several really old houses with realy big lawn scuptures - including one with a real Richard Serra. Personally, I loved it! But I guess my "only if" statement would be: only if it's good art.

Loving that orange tree...
(However, to temper its starkness, I'd put in some foundation plantings and other live flora.)

I don't care for either of the pictured items at all. The only good thing about them being next door would be in giving directions to someone, "We're next to the giant hand sculpture."

In general I don't like sculpture in the front yards of ordinary homes. There have been several homes in my neighborhood that have bronze deer sculptures. I think sculpture in front of a museum is fine. In front of a house, it seems pretentious.

Oh god, those hands! So weak.

in madison connecticut where i grew up there is the "madison mile" which is basically the downtown strip that has all different kinds of sculptures. most of them are very good and aesthetically pleasing. i think both of these houses in the photos are interesting points of reference for their neighborhoods, therefore they do not bother me.

I'm not a fan of either of these examples either, but I think something tasteful that goes with the style of the house would be great. These two seem like they were just stuck out in front of the houses with no thought for the whole picture.

This reminds me of my aunt and uncle, who have always had a lovely brass statue of a girl (the size of about a 6 years old) looking up at the sky with her arms outstretched (she always looked to me like she was watching raindrops falling). At both their houses, they've had her surrounded by lots of lush plants (ferns and such) and I always thought she was stunning. Kind of different from the sculptures shown here, but definitely a sculpture I would own and display in the yard.

There are a few lawn sculptures around here. I always feel like maybe the couple's close friend or 20-something daughter took a welding class, and gave them the sculpture for a gift, and therefore they can never remove it.

I guess they could work if they were well-planned and fit the space, but I'm not sure about these two. The hands, well... if you have to choose the sculpture based on the bend of the tree sticking out of the ground, you're probably not creating great art. (Though those half-tree sculptures are an interesting use of an otherwise puposeleses half-tree.)

I love the tree (though I think it needs to be bigger/thicker limbed to really make the intended statement) but dislike the hands. I have a lot of respect for lawn sculptures, mostly because they are going against the idea of the 'Great American Lawn,' where every front yard is supposed to blend in with everyone else's. Lawn sculptures are a great way of expressing individuality, but they really need to be part of a whole design scheme, instead of the halfway attempts that both of these examples take. Go all out and lose the lawn. Either completely plant the front yard with lush vegetation, or use rock or gravel to 'pave' the yard (and use less water for landscaping).

I dig it. I like public art wherever I can find it. Even if that art is one guy's summer project with a dead tree and a chain saw. As long as the art is neither vulgar, destructive nor offensive, I prefer this much, much more to the dictates of home-owner association groupthink good taste. Go, eccentrics, go! Resale values be damned.

Plus, these things helps people find your house ("Just turn left after the giant hands...")

"Good taste is the enemy of creativity" - Picasso.

Scale is a factor that must be considered. The hands above are too large for the average house. The style isn't my thing, either.

An Alexander Calder or Dale Chihuly sculpture would be welcome in my yard any day.

On the same theme I think these are fabulous love the rubber ducky, poodles and the red dog-
http://www.florentijnhofman.nl/dev/projects.php

I agree w/BruceS63. But, that said, now if my neighbors ask me why I don't remove the dead mimosa in my backyard (hummingbirds perch there), I will declare it a sculpture.

Wait a sec. . . were you in Grand Rapids? I've seen that orange tree!

I have to wonder what people mean when they say they only want "good" art? Art that appeals to everyone or has a famous name attached to it?

Personally, even if the wooden hands are a bit clunky or the tree too orange, I appreciate the daring spirit and ambitious creativity of the homeowners and their willingness to make a personal statement. To me, the start of any good artistic statement comes from having a unique vision and expressing it to the world, warts and all.

I have a dead 8' sweetgum in front of my house (more like in an old pasture). I painted it red (and went a bit overboard with a red glass orb fruit underneath).

Right now it's mostly hidden, but judging from the comments from the one neighbor who can see it, I'll likely get a bunch more comments when the leaves fall on the sumacs and it will be somewhat visible from the road.

link

@LoriSF--I love the rubber duckie; it's adorable. At the same time, however, it reminds me of an incident at the Paul Klee Museum in Switzerland last year. The headline from the CBC's website put it best: "Inflatable dog turd sculpture escapes Swiss museum, wreaks havoc".

http://tinyurl.com/62fnxo

Yes, Zohreh, Grand Rapids.

only if....it were a simple form and integrated itself into the landscape. I have a couple of small orbs in my garden...that's enough.

This makes a great argument for neighborhood associations.

Anybody from the Arlington, Virginia, community would love, love, love to weigh in on this. Of course, they're biased: They've had to deal with a huge mermaid sculpture (carved several years ago from a dead tree) that the WashPost once described as "an 18-foot-tall carved wooden mermaid with a shapely derriere and bare breasts that must be at least size DD."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1396-2004Sep6.html

(i THOUGHT that'd description would get you to click on the link!)

I have a giant red robot sculpture in my front yard, but as my front yard is walled you only see glimpses of it from the street.

I'd love to do have sculpture on my nature strip, but vandalism is an issue. Sadly having expensive and/or audacious sculpture exposed to the world is like a painting a bullseye on the front of your house.

i think these large sculptures work really well either in urban areas as a focal point to an entry of a building, or in rural areas, where the scale around them is larger.

there were some lovely tall metal stick figure sculptures frolicking out in a field in rural Franklin, NY on a farm off a main road. everyone in town loved them. then again, if they were on an 8x8 tiny yard in a suburb, they might not be so well received.