Garden Show Yard Art

My sculptor friend Steve Piper insists that there is more money to be made producing yard art than in proper sculpture. He may be right. Last year he made quite a number of decorative birds and sold quite a few. So he convinced me to give it a try. Steve’s pieces were man sized birds. Sort of stork like in appearance. He used car hoods for the wings, cutting them out so they looked like feathers.

So for the last five or six weeks I have been busy making yard art. I didn’t want to do the type of thing Steve did so I used my Prairie Moon sculptures as a guide for the type of thing I would build. Since the idea is to make the things inexpensively, I used simple materials and designs. I left the welds rough because grinding can account for lots of time. I did grind a few areas that absolutely had to have it.

I started with the idea of having several different designs with about a half dozen pieces each. But as the deadline approached I ended up with 7 of one and 6 of another. The third design proved to be more difficult to fabricate than I had anticipated and I only got one of them done. I incorporated it into one of the pieces of the second design. That one was the Celtic Hare.

The last week before the show it rained every day so the ground was nice and soft and easy to press the pieces in.

The first ones I called Yard Art One and they were about 6 feet tall and made of rerod and flat bar stock rolled into a ring. At first I was going to incorporate hooks to hand bird feeders on, but that wouldn’t look right if you just wanted to use it as art. So I decided that instead of hooks welded onto the rerod, I would suggest the customer use “S” hooks. Then they could have the piece either with bird feeders or without.

The second design I called Yard Art Two surprisingly enough. The were made with nicer materials. Square tubing and solid rod with rerod for the ground stakes. My original intent was to put a ring on the top, similar to the first ones. But I just acquired a new plasma cutter so I decided to make decorative disks instead. this proved to be a lot bigger problem than I thought it would be so I made 3 of the disks and used rings for two others.

My third design was going to be the Celtic Hares. They were going to have a springy base so it would look animated when the wind blew. I used the steel I got for the disks to make it but it turned out to be way too heavy for the springy base, so I used the last frame from the second design to support it. I may still try to build some of the hares with lighter metal and a bit smaller in size. Also shown below is a detail of one of the cutout disks

The entry fee for the show was right, $15, and you got a table and chair besides the space to show your work. My spot was perfect. Shady with a breeze blowing all day. We had lots of traffic, being right next to the outdoor cafeteria tables. Karen went around the show and had a look at everyone else’s booths. When she got back she spelled me while I had a look around. When I was away she made the first sale.

The customers were really complimentary. By the end of the day, I had sold 5 of the sculptures all told. I also had three requests from retail stores to provide them with stock wholesale. That could be nice.

All in all, this turned out to be a pretty good deal for me.