The study of neighbors through their lawn decoration...
Figure 40. College View: Where art takes over the swings.Originally known as Goat Hill, College View has been home to Locavores and Ecotarians long before urban farming was considered hip. This is the neighborhood where Dardano's Flowerland, the locally grown flower-bedding superstore, was founded by Italian truck farmers who made their first fortune by feeding Denver. The area still retains its rural quiet, with silence broken by sporadic crowing chickens and conversing neighbors. To this day, the lots lining the streets range in size from oversized-city to miniature-farm, and nearly all of the yards are packed with personal projects. The yard pictured in figure 40 is College View's yard-art jackpot.
That a child's swing set, placed prominently at the front of the yard, has been converted into a hanging sculpture gallery indicates that this is the home of an older yard artist whose grandkids have grown. The slide has been pushed back to mid-yard and appears to wait nervously to be welded into a designer Cross. The numerous Crosses affixed to the home suggests that the flow of creative energy may be made possible by a belief in Jesus. The carefully welded silhouettes of the Denver Broncos mascot that morph into a Rorschach test shape intimates that every piece of yard art is created with some special meaning.