Lawn Art in Spring Branch

Robert Boyd

If you've ever been up to the Houston Foundry on Burnett St. in the Fifth Ward, you've probably seen Metalhenge, a sculpture group of metal screens in an empty lot at the corner of Maury and Burnett.


Metalhenge

I have no idea who the artist is. (If you do, please let me know in the comments.) I've always liked them, though.

Imagine my surprise as I was driving through a nondescript Spring Branch neighborhood when I saw this.



This is at 1733 Crestdale, just south of Neuens Rd. It certainly appears to be by the same artist.

Let me add that this is not a neighborhood where I would expect anyone to have a sculpture in their front yard. The reality, I've found, is that Houstonians just choose not to decorate their yards in this way. It's really rare. I was delighted to stumble across this exception to the rule.

Lawn Art in Pecan Park

Robert Boyd

I was trying to take a shortcut to Broadway by driving through the residential streets of Pecan Park. I was driving up Myrtle St. when I saw this:



This noble steed was tied up in the yard of a house at the corner of Pabst and Myrtle.



As far as I can tell, this is a leftover, damaged horse from one of those municipal public art things where fiberglass animal statues are painted in various fanciful ways and placed at various points around town. This started with the Cow Parade which stared in Chicago in 1999. (It encountered a hick-up in New York in 2000 when they unwisely commissioned David Lynch to produce a cow sculpture.) There is now a company that does nothing but manufacture these animals for such kitschy celebrations of municipal pride. (Cowpainters has an amazing catalog, but I was disappointed to find that they didn't have a chupacabra mold.)

Even though I think these "cow parade"-style things are kind of ridiculous, I like this lone avaition-themed horse. It's worse for the wear, with a quasi-prosthetic on one foot and a bucket on another. (Perhaps this is an homage to The Art Guys.) The best part is the rope keeping the horse tied to the tree. Don't want him to escape, I guess!



And the planes are pretty cool, too.

Lawn Art in the Heights

by Robert Boyd


View Robert's Houston Art Map in a larger map

I was driving around the Heights when I saw the following piece of lawn art at a house on the corner of 5th and Columbia.



It is a group of palm trees, and I'd characterize them more as a Hurricane Ike-style palm trees rather than a Jimmy Buffett-style palm trees. They seems like they are frozen in violent motion.



I've added it to my woefully out-of-date Houston Art Map. If you know of interesting lawn art out there in Houston and vicinity, let me know! (And if anyone knows who the artist on these palms is, plese contact me.)

Folk Art? Lawn Art? Whatever It Is, I Like It

Great catch from Swamplot today. Someone down in South Houston has taken a welding torch and turned his mailbox into a totem of the alien from Alien. I love lawn art in general, and this is an awesome example of someone turning a quotidian object into an idiosyncratic, highly-public piece of personal expression.

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What Some People in Galveston Have Done With the Trees that Ike Killed

See many more amazing photos at Swamplot. The photos were taken by Candace Garcia, who has tons more of them on her Flickr page. Check them out. I'd love to know the sculptors for each of these!

The Best Lawn Art Ever

After the Art Car Parade, my sister wanted to show me a house on Longwoods Lane, a very elegant street off of Memorial that goes all the way back to the Bayou. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw this:



This is a sculpture by Bernar Venet. It is barely visible from the road. I had to climb through some bushes to get this shot. (I don't recommend this--the neighborhood is plastered with signs promising "armed response".)


My sister did a little research and determined that the house belongs to John and Becca Thrash. He's the CEO of eCORP, a company that specializes in natural gas storage. Looking at his Facebook page, he seems to be friends with several people involved in contemporary art in Houston, and given this massive piece of lawn art, one has to assume that the Thrashes are big collectors.

Now if you don't want to trespass on the Thrash's lawn, you can see a bunch of Bernar Venet sculptures in Hermann Park, where they will be on view until September 30.

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Lawn Art and Plop Art Photos

I took a few photos of public sculpture this weekend. None of these wow me, personally, but I like the fact that they exist. I'd rather have them where they are than not have them there.

Anyone who has ever had coffee at the Art League has probably noticed this abstract piece in front of apartments at the corner of Montrose and Bomar.



Here is another view.



Does anyone know who the artist is or what the sculpture is called?

Up in Stude Park is an enormous metal sculpture that probably everyone driving west from Downtown on I-10 has seen.


Mac Whitney, Houston, steel and paint, 1981

It is called Houston and it's by an artist named Mac Whitney.


Mac Whitney, Houston, steel and paint, 1981

Finally, at the corner of  Bayland and Morrison up in the Heights is a piece of metal lawn art.



It's kind of a curving broom-like structure on a tripod with a spring around its base.



If anyone knows what this is called or who the artist is, please let me know!

Lawn Art in the Heights

This sculpture is at the intersection of Norhill and Bayland. It looks like the top half of this tree was taken down (by wind?) and the homeowners added this demented wooden face to the stump.



It has a maniacal look--it's hard to say if it is screaming or laughing. The dreadlocks made of chains give it an extra-spooky appearance.



A great Halloween decoration, no? But it appears to be permanent. Perhaps its there to frighten evil spirits away.

Robert's Houston Art Map

View Robert's Houston Art Map in a larger map

This is a map I have been keeping as I visit different art venues around town. It's not nearly complete, although I can say I have visited most of the commercial galleries and non-profit galleries/museums in the area. Obviously stuff is concentrated inside the Loop--and within the Loop in spacific areas, like the Museum District (duh), Montrose, the West End, the Heights, and the area immediately north of Downtown.

As I continue to add to this map, I expect I will add more "outside the Loop" venues. I know many of the regional community colleges have galleries on campus, for example, and I'd like to check them out. But as in most cities, art venues tend to be clustered where there is the largest number of potential artists, aficionados, intellectuals, and collectors. And for Houston, that sweet spot is mostly inside the Loop.

Jonathan Clark's Nautilus

I'm not sure what this piece is called, but "Nautilus" would be a petty good title, don't you think? I saw this at the Darke Gallery yesterday, and I like it a lot. It's apparently made from scrap wood, but it looks like Clark worked the wood quite a bit. You'll recall that he did a similar piece that was on display (and probably still is on display) at Box 13. I don't really have much to say about this piece except that I like it--it looks great.

I wonder how well it would handle the weather? Maybe with a coat of paint or clear polycoat, it could be made relatively permanent. It would be a damned handsome piece of lawn art for some adventurous Houston burgher. Here's another view:

Lawn Art Alert

I am always looking for lawn art, which I define as sculpture in the lawns of private residences. It can be in the front yard or back yard, but it has to be visible by me without any trespassing. This one is 1836 Sunset Blvd.



If anyone knows anything about this sculpture, or any of the other lawn art I have found, please let me know!

Here is a map of the lawn art I have identified so far.

View Lawn Art in a larger map

Lawn Art

Last year in my other blog, I suggested that certain houses in Memorial that had huge front yards would benefit from some lawn sculpture. This weekend, I happened upon some lawn sculptures and had an inspiration--I would create a Google map of Houston lawn sculptures.


View Lawn Art in a larger map

As I discover new, interesting lawn art, I will add it to the map. Readers are free to make suggestions. I won't try to be exhaustive--only sculptures or objects that interest me will go on the map. And I will limit it to private residences. Art on public property or commercial property--however interesting--belongs on some other map.

So the first lawn art I saw Saturday was at the corner of Eberhard and West Pierce.



The sculpture is pretty unassuming. It's only about two feet high. And there is another one on the other side of the front walkway that I didn't photograph. Still, it's interesting to stumble onto a pair of Anthony Caro-like welded metal sculptures in someone's front yard. Anyone hove any idea who the sculptor is?

The second are two sculptures in someone's "back yard" (I use quotes because the house has a really weird orientation on the lot, and the back yard is off to its side). This is at 4618 Blossom, in the weird shaded enclave that seems so different from the rest of the neighborhood. This property is one of the reasons it seems so different.



That's one of the sculptures.



And here is the other sculpture. They are respectively a dodecahedron and an octohedron. They are two of the five platonic solids. (Here's an animated gif of a dodecahedron, included solely because I think it's cool.)


 Now it's actually quite hard to see these sculptures. The owner of this proiperty has planted a rather dense privacy screen of shrubs and trees. The property seems rather spooky--it has a swampy, jungle-y vibe. Here's the main house.



You see that stuff hanging between the columns? It looks like the camouflage netting you see in Vietnam movies!

Intrigued, I looked the property up on HCAD. HCAD lists it as having one small house on the property.



But in fact, there are two houses here. One seems like it may have been moved to the property. Here is a photo of the north side of the second house.



Behind that enormous window is the bathroom. The window is obviously a modern addition, but the bathroom has old-style fixtures, including a freestanding tub. It suggests erotic fantasies of walking by on Fowler and noticing a beautiful woman reclining in her bubble bath before this huge window... Ahem.

Anyway, the reason I mention these two strange houses in addition to the sculptures is just to point out how decidedly odd the property is. The owner, Salle Werner Vaughn, lists his residence as being in River Oaks (according to HCAD). Salle Werner Vaughn, as far as I can tell, was (is?) some kind of art educator, as well as an author of at least one out-of-print book.

But enough about his houses and sculptures. Since this is the inaugural Lawn Art blog post, I want to state some principles.

1) Lawn art is a good thing
2) People should put sculptures or other artistic objects in their front yards
3) Other people should respect people's lawn art

Here are some pros and cons of lawn art.

Pros
1) It makes your house more interesting.
2) It distinguishes you from the neighbors.
3) It demonstrates that you have taste (obviously this depends on the art).
4) It gives your front yard a reason for existing (front yards are generally pretty useless in Houston--people do their recreating in the back yard).
5) It shows that you have money (again, this depends on the art itself).
6) It gives people a reason to notice your house and look at your house, which may make it less likely that you will be robbed.

Cons
1) It can be expensive to buy a sculpture.
2) Your art could be stolen.
3) Your art could be vandalized (especially by teenagers with spraycans).
4) Your neighbors/homeowners busybody group/zoning board (in some non-Houston neighborhoods) might disapprove.
5) Lawn art usually requires some maintenance (periodic repainting, rust removal, weeding around the bottom, etc.).
6) It may also require insurance.