Vintage Yard Art

By Tom Poland

 

 

Remember these lines from an old Chuck Berry song? “Cruisin’ and playin’ the radio/With no particular place to go.” Well, the next time you have no particular place to go I have a suggestion. Drive into the countryside and see what vintage Southern yard art you can find. Look for tree trunks painted white. Look for swings suspended from big oak limbs. See if you can find purple martin gourds, and give yourself extra points if you can a row of tires half buried in the ground and painted white. This scavenger hunt of sorts won’t be easy but if you stumble across vintage sights it’s like taking a trip into the past.

Anyone who’s bought new tires knows they have to pay a tire disposal fee. That wasn’t a problem back in the day. Tires often enjoyed a reincarnation. Growing up, it was nothing to see truck tires made into flowerpots. Painted white and sheared so as to have scalloped edges, the pots held red geraniums. They were quite pretty and quite original.

Around the curve, rows of white-painted tires flanked a driveway, and up by a big, old clapboard home, a homemade swing hung from a big oak. I’d see tires made into swings too. A tire swing was a scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

 

 

People found new uses for old stuff before the wasteful throwaway society arrived. Giving junk a second life was alive and well back in the day, though it wasn’t thought of as recycling. A nail-skewered tire could be turned into a flowerpot or swing. And practicality backed some customs. Painting orchard trees white, for instance, was considered protection against fungi, disease, and insects. I don’t believe the painted trees I saw were being protected though. Who protects pines? No, I believe the folks who painted pine trunks white were simply trying to give their yard a more pleasing appearance.

Putting up purple martin gourds alleviated mosquito problems. When I see gourds dangling from a pole I know I am in deep into the country. No doubt you’ll spot bottle trees but they don’t count as they’ve seen a revival of late. Today people put them up because they see others put them up. Once the domain of the Lowcountry, you see bottle trees most anywhere. People in the Congo hung bottles from trees to ward off evil spirits, and slaves brought the practice here. Now they please the eye more so than capturing evil spirits as designed. Other oddities include miniature windmills and wooden ducks with “windmill” arms that spin with the wind. For me the true yard art of yesteryear is a row of half-buried tires edging a driveway. It steered you straight and made finding the driveway at night a whole lot easier.

Over the years and miles I’ve driven many a back road and I have seen all kinds of yard art. Miniature lighthouses, concrete “sculptures” of angels and cherubs, non-functioning fountains filled with flowers, and lawn jockeys, known as “Yardells. They have an origin in history, though it’s viewed as doubtful. Nonetheless here it is. These statues, widely considered racially insensitive, supposedly symbolized a hero of African American history and culture. The River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, Louisiana says the ‘lawn jockey’ has its roots in one Jocko Graves, an African-American youth who served with General George Washington. When Washington crossed the Delaware to ambush British forces, he considered Graves too young for such danger and left him behind to tend to the horses and to keep a light on the bank for their return. Jocko Graves, faithful to his post and orders, froze to death during the night, the lantern still in his hand. The young fellow’s devotion so moved Washington that he had a statue sculpted of him holding the lantern. Washington installed the statue at his Mount Vernon estate, referring to it as “The Faithful Groomsman.” True? Who knows, but true or not, lawn jockeys were long a fixture in yards and along driveways. Today most are hidden away or repainted white.

We live in different times and most people are content to have neat yards free of vintage yard art. For sure you’d get turned in to the homeowners association if you buried tires halfway along your driveway. That’s why I love the back roads. They serve up quirky-but-interesting sights you’ll see nowhere else. Old claw-foot tubs filled with flowers, amateur totem poles carved from trees, these oddities and more are out there. Shiny aluminum pans dangling from dead trees too. Of course, you will see pink flamingoes.

Hit the backroads and see what you can find as yard art from yesteryear goes. Take the lesser-traveled roads, the kinds that lead to abandoned stores and non-incorporated communities. Should you find an old tar-and-gravel, or even better, a dirt road, take those and travel back in time. Take good photos because you’ll not see the likes of some things again. For sure, your grandkids won’t.

 

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

Tom Poland is the author of eight books and more than 700 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press has released his and Robert Clark’s book, Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II. The History Press of Charleston just released his book, Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

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