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by C. Jeanette Tyson
Somewhere
along the way, the American Dream of having a home and a little patch of
land derailed. It became having a home and a large patch of groomed, green
lawn. This lawn would be maintained with enormous amounts of water and
oceans of pesticides. It would require of you the indignity of wearing
unflattering garb and wrestling,
red-faced, with a machine in front of the neighbors. Yes, your lawn would
occasionally give you flowers. Perhaps you’d set the barbecue in the
corner. But you would hardly, if ever, lie back in its prickly clutches to
contemplate the clouds.
Finally, despite all this sacrifice and attention, our lawns would not
distinguish our home from our neighbor’s, or our neighborhoods from one
in, oh, let’s just say, Dallas.
Of
all the sins a standard grass lawn could commit, and an Austinite
could bear, this last one may have been the manicured blade that broke
the camel’s back for Randy Jewart.
Jewart is a sculptor, father and Executive Director of Austin Green
Arts, an ongoing public art program based on environmental themes.
Though thoroughly green, his intent is not to fight City Hall on the
city’s explosive growth. On the contrary, he thinks it’s highly
possible for the New Austin to look a lot like Old Austin, albeit with
a timely spin. His latest project, Grow Austin Weird, is designed to
help.
“In Austin, the timing is really important; we’re establishing what
growth means from an aesthetic and community standpoint. Are we going
to develop generic spaces or do we have some guiding ideas of what the
city’s going to look like?”
How does a project like this come about? Over lunch with six
enthusiastic participants, I heard how the seeds were planted.
Jewart had already been working with developers to create more
imaginative, usable communal spaces in new residential and commercial
properties. He wanted community gardens and kitchens instead of
exclusive golf courses and clubhouses, for instance. Art, gardens,
sustainable food production and community-building were already in the
pot, stewing. The landscapers, UT students, artists and
horticulturalists gathered around the table were already among the
contacts.
Then came the dinosaurs.
J Muzacz, a lanky young artist, builds huge dinosaurs from found
materials. He also had an idea about communal space. With the help of
seven housemates, he ripped the turf out of his front yard and replaced
it with veggies. Between the dinosaur lounging in the front yard and
the extra beets, Muzacz met a lot of the neighbors last year, including
the fifty kids in the daycare across the street and Bradley, who’d
lived in the house next door more than a year.
Muzacz told Jewart about a project in California called Edible Estates,
where apparently a whole lot of people are replacing turf with
tomatoes, lawns with lettuce.
Jewart just said, let’s get started. And he immediately found four
other places to plant a garden.
According to Justin Bursch of Home Harvest Organics, Austin has a
different attitude from other cities, one that will make this project
work. Whether it’s our mix of foodies, artists and iconoclasts, our
concern for the environment, our collective sense that it may be time
that we all come together, or whether we are just too damn proud to be
mistaken for any other town, it doesn’t really matter.
Austin is fertile ground for a sea change.
Everyone at the table agreed that the idea of perfection has alienated
people from their own yards. The idea that you can be wild and crazy
gives you freedom.
Not to mention Wednesday night’s dinner. Or your morning herbal tea. Or
floral arrangements for the house. Or supplies for your art project. Or
a friendship with a neighbor who just stops by to see what you’re
doing, and maybe takes a few tomatoes and a few days later brings you
chutney.
It also gives you a living laboratory to explore with kids, who
suddenly find themselves talking about what they like to eat, and about
cooking, science, and life in general, dirty and smiling from head to
toe.
Jewart claims not to have a green thumb himself, but does have a
gardener’s instinct for planting the seeds then waiting to see what
develops; there will be seasons with this project.
His goal is to document the progress of the garden scenarios on a web
site as a resource and guide for people who, for whatever reason and
from whichever angle, are rethinking how they use their little patch of
land, how they can Grow Austin Weird and then, who knows, maybe the
world.
“This is not just a faded t-shirt,” said Robby Lee, of Oasis Gardens.
“This is an idea people can work with.”
The seed is planted. Go grab a spade.
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C. Jeanette Tyson is a writer and mom to Maddy,
very healthy rosemary bushes. Her award-winning branding work can be
found at www.thethinkkitchen.com
To become a member and watch how this
project grows, visit www.austingreenart.org.
