[By Don Doman] Prepare for National Yard Art Day – 2017
Labor Day is also National Yard Art Day. It’s a day to relax from your labors and enjoy the product of work-a-day labor as well as artistic efforts and attitude.
Arno Holz, the German naturalist poet and dramatist, said “Art has a tendency to revert to nature.” This is really true with the beginnings of yard art, which were centered around gardens. You had to visit the back yard or garden to enjoy or even see the yard art. Holz, was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature nine times. He must have been just off target in his comment, because he never won the Nobel prize. I don’t like the idea of yard art only being accessible to people who are invited to a home or garden. I think art should be available to everyone. I like all forms of yard art, murals, signs, sculptures and fountains. Some art due to subject matter and value, should be private, but yard art is for public display.
As stated in the article A Celebration of Yard Art in the Suburban Times, “Garden parties are a great way to share landscape, flowers, and yard art, but they only touch a few people. A tour of a home touches even fewer people, but yard art can reach hundreds or even thousands of people driving by every single day. Art in a museum only reaches a few people and so is hard to attract a following, but yard art can create an instant connection.”
“It is my dream that for one day people remember that child within them that likes to play creatively without any judgment or restraint. For us to cross neighborhood, city boundaries. To be inclusive. Art can do this.”
– Deborah Triplett, Yard Art Day creator
There are multitudes of subjects for art and design just waiting for someone to create them. The world is waiting to see what you can bring forth. If not by National Yard Art Day, then there is always next year. Regardless, drive around on Labor Day/National Yard Art Day and enjoy both the art you see and the art you can imagine.
Don Doman is a published author of self-help small business books, a digital marketer, an Imagineer, and a community instigator.