Guerrilla Garden Ornaments
I can’t remember why I started pouring concrete into plastic skulls a couple months ago. I was in the garage, sorting screws, rearranging bicycles, lawn chairs and canoes. The bag of Portland Cement was shoved under a metal shelving unit I brought over from my last garage, but never put back together. My eyes went back and forth from the bag of cement to the plastic, Frankenstein head, Halloween bucket in the rafters, I spent the next couple weekends taking care of my urge to fill things with concrete. I filled Jell-o molds, pie tins and random plastic Halloween ornaments I found at the dollar store.There were moments when I thought I might be able to do something useful with them. I imagined creating ornate molds or beautiful, detailed blocks for retaining walls. I found a couple star shaped cake tins and thought about tearing out my asphalt driveway and replacing it with an intricate pattern of concrete stars. I live close to a creek and I’m sure the amount of toxic driveway runoff from my alley could be reduced if only there were a way I could convince all my neighbors to band together and protect the watershed by paying me to replace their driveways with a permeable star paver pattern. Actually, since the creek was dry most for most of the summer. I decided to put some of the concrete fish I made from an old tin mold in it, somebody carted them away the next day.
In less than a month I had more than forty little garden ornaments and they were beginning to take up a space in the garage that I had hoped to clear out. I started giving them away. My next door neighbor was trying to get me to sell them in her garage sale, but I went out of town that weekend. I gave her one of my concrete feet and she stuck it in her garden. I asked the neighbor on the other side if he’d like a concrete ball I made from an old light fixture’s broken globe and he put it out in the alley next to his garage. I really liked seeing my little concrete things greeting me from the neighbor’s yards on my way home.I would have filled my own garden up, but for some reason the objects seem to clash with my landscaping. I’ve used a variety of broken concrete balusters, birdbath pedestals and decorative ornamentation from old buildings on a slope down to the sidewalk and for some reason shiny new concrete skulls, feet, fish and cake molds just didn’t look right among my found objects. I was coming home from the light rail station one sunny Saturday when I noticed a nice big tree hole from the sidewalk. It was just big enough for one on my concrete skulls. I still haven’t found the right tree holes for the other three or four skulls in my garage, but I have found nice little nooks, crannies and granny gardens for all my other pieces. I don’t think the neighbors mind. Some people have moved them to more prominent places in their garden.I may still get around to using the star Jell-o mold to make pavers for my drive or sidewalk next spring, but putting the things you make in other peoples yards can be almost as much fun as placing them in your own.
