for two years I have tended a meadow in the empty lot next to my house. I do not own this property, but have been making art there for three years. It all started in reaction to some intolerance towards public art in my neighborhood. I was pissed off at a new wave of gentrifiers who were "cleaning" things up. so I took a course of counter-action: I built a custom billboard which stood 25 feet high, cascading in part over the back of my house and also stretching into my neighbor's territory by a few feet. I did not ask permission. I did ask for funding from within the arts community and did it. I made it an art show since I live on a very public corner! And for the show, I unleashed an unofficial commercial-like neon sign which would not be provocative in it's message, only in the audacity of building it, squeezed between cute little working class houses. mind you, this is a neighorhood with a historic designation. if someone was going to press me, I was to claim that billboards are historic. I mean, a highway borders the south side of the hood and there are plenty of old billboards there. (it's a long saga. . .click here for the full story of my "PARADISE" sign) the wild meadow in the rest of the empty lot was the companion piece.
alas, a few weeks ago it finally happened. The sword of Damocles dropped. the property owner showed up with a bobcat and tore down the meadow and the billboard. it was rough day. I was too emotional to document it--a critical art mistake on my part. after it was done, they sprinkled cement dust on the entire surface of the lot, to make it a parking lot again. and I sat in my house feeling defeated.
Why? from the beginning, I knew that I was playing with this space temporarily. I was connected to this land, not by conventional means, but through personal presence and energy work, the way ancient people or animals stand guard over territory. I had challenged the gentrifiers to tear down my wild and free "paradise." But it's been years now. . . I was allowed domain over this space for years. In the end, I was almost relieved not to have to go through the trouble of a total deinstall or some official ending. I had not secured a place for the sign to go. early on, one immediate neighbor complained about the light of the neon in her bedroom, and I had to take that neon part down. but I left the structure up and played with it. . .it was great just as an empty framework. . .the design was beautiful on its own, especially as I gardened through several seasons of wildflowers in bloom. passersby thanked me for it all the time. and there was only the occasional hater. I had made this territory next to my home, which was dead and ugly--an inert hunk of land to be bought and sold--into a magical art & design center. and, now that it was over, I still wanted to find a way to deter people from actually parking in this space. After some consideration, and a little recovery time, my friend Crystal and I created a walking labyrinth in the space.
not sure how to maintain it or if I should at all. Am I being too agressive? I've always wanted to design a secondary use for parking lots. . .as places to walk and contemplate when not filled up with cars. . .Imagine a parking lot labyrinth outlined in neon and powered by solar! It could happen temporarily as a conventional public artwork. or for a future time. . . there might be many such parking lot labyrinths created in the leftover cement gardens after the age of the car. . . lord knows, there will be so many of them!
