Pink flamingoes, move aside.
Kentucky yard art has a new look, made from natural materials like metals and stone, and sophisticated stylings like stained glass united with wrought iron and copper sculpted into functional objets d'art.
"There is growing interest in art for the yard because people are more into gardening, more into the environment, and into transitioning the indoors out and outdoors in," says Fran Redmon, director of the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program, a state agency in the Kentucky Arts Council, Education, Arts & Humanities Cabinet. "Technology is driving us at such a pace, that the trend is toward creating relaxing and aesthetically appealing home environments. One way people are expressing this need is through creating an environment outdoors."
All this means good news for gardens in terms of the art available. In place of country geese dressed in seasonal finery there are copper frogs and flowers, wire horses, and stained-glass garden spikes. There are trellises wrought from stainless steel and patio and garden sculptures formed of stone. The trend has gone upscale and urbane, with some yard art purely ornamental, some sleekly contemporary, and some downright whimsical. Most is functional and all is handmade and crafted right here in the state.

Trading Cars for Copper
The green-eyed monster helped inspire Hart-Art, a home-based business in Louisville that specializes in copper garden accessories.
Part owner of a body shop several years ago, Joe Hart realized one day that he was tired of smelling fumes. He sold his interest in the business to his partner and went home. Meanwhile, Joe's wife, Karen, herself in the car business, toiled on in the nine-to-five grind.
"My wife was getting a bit jealous about going to work every day with me at home," Joe laughs. "She said, 'We're going to do something else.' "
The "something else" became handcrafted copper spinning garden sprinklers and, later, torches, rain gauges, and hose guides.
The couple have happily been in the business of creating yard art in their basement for two and a half years now.
"We just started making things," says Joe. "There was a lot of experimentation and throwing things away until we got it right. A lot of research and development has gone into these products."
Mechanically inclined all his life, Joe drew on his background in body shop work to help launch the business. Creative by nature, Karen conceives the designs.
"She tells me what she wants made and I figure out a way to make it."
The Harts now participate in about 30 art shows a year, traveling from New York all the way down the East Coast to Florida. The copper pieces are all hand-soldered and decorated with natural stone and reflect a diversity in price and product. Hart-Art prices range from about $13 for the hose guides to about $140 or more for the spinning sprinklers, with the rain gauges and torches falling somewhere in between.
"Instead of an ugly, old sprinkler, people want something pretty, but they want it to work, too," stresses Karen.
The melding of form and function follows the prevalence of extending living space from the inside out into the lawn and landscape.
"We're spending more time at home and more time entertaining at home," says Karen. "People want to make the most use of their space, and this includes creating outdoor space that is comfortable and appealing.
"Adding garden art heightens the beauty of outdoor seating areas and landscaped areas. It's decorative and sophisticated and it's functional, too."

Good Garden Bugs
Erica Kirchner, owner of Creature Comforts by Erica, put her resourcefulness into creating garden sculpture about seven years ago on her Prospect farm. Dragonflies, praying mantises, bumble bees, lizards, frogs, turtles-the staked and freestanding all-weather copper insects and amphibians are designed to perch in flowerbeds and prowl through landscaped garths.
The artist led a far different life before she redefined her relation to the land.
"I had been a fine artist exhibiting paintings in galleries for years, but it's a hard way to make a living so I got totally out of art and became a farm manager."
One of Kirchner's best friends, a director at a Lexington museum, told her she could not be a farm manager and ordered Kirchner back to her art. After a grant she applied for to learn welding fell through, Kirchner decided to teach herself to make the bugs she saw on her farm.
"I began playing around with copper and started making grasshoppers and turtles."
Impressed with the copper designs, Kirchner's friend next advised her to get into a juried program where only artists with topnotch skills are invited to showcase their art. So the former fine artist and farm manager put together her line of garden sculptures and set off for Kentucky Crafted: The Market, a cultural showcase of the state's finest handicrafts.
"When I first started, I did the International Gift Fair in New York and then the Kentucky Crafted: The Market show. One minute I was not in business, the next minute I was-whether I wanted to be or not.
"It seems that people will spare no expense on their gardens."
Kirchner is expanding her line to include two-dimensional copper cat guardians and 3-foot-tall hanging sculptures, which she describes as women's upside-down faces with long, flowing tendrils of hair.
"I wanted to do something unique, something high-end, and I was thinking about kids hanging from trees," she says of her inspiration to create the hanging sculpture. For the rest of her designs, Kirchner says the inspiration part is easy.
"The insects come from where I live. And I have a million things going on in my head and 25 years of drawings and sketches."

Staking Out the Garden
Following the lead of Louis Comfort Tiffany-the American artist who developed an opalescent-colored glass that he used most famously in lamps-Covington artist Cliff Kennedy, owner of Kaleidoscope Stained Glass Studio, developed a garden stake three years ago that combines stained glass with a metal frame.
The stake is an 8- or 12-inch disc that, according to its creator, looks like a lollipop and is just as colorful once the art glass is framed within the wrought-iron surround.
Like Tiffany, who drew on nature for inspiration, Kennedy creates flower and bug designs in stained glass and then puts them back in nature via his garden stakes, trellises, and wind chimes.
"For us, the true beauty of glass is when light shines through it," he says. "With a nature motif, it's the perfect combination for garden art." The artist is also an author, having penned four books on art glass, including Steppin' Out into the Garden and Beyond the Garden Wall, for creating garden mosaic steppingstones.
"These pieces bloom when your garden doesn't," notes fellow employee Jane Pompilio.
"Seeing this beautiful stained glass that changes color according to different light is very soothing to the eye. On sunny days, the colors are vibrant. As evening comes, the colors tone down."
Another artist specializing in garden stakes and trellises, as well as potted plant suspenders, is Louisville sculptor Dave Caudill, who welds stainless steel artworks on an architectural scale. One of his works, a 7-foot-tall knife, fork, and spoon commissioned by the Brown-Forman Corporation of Louisville, stands in the garden area just outside the company's executive cafe.
"Serious landscaping has become very popular," asserts Caudill. "As folks invest more time and money to create a beautiful lawn and garden, they seem to be ready to move beyond ornament to invest in substantial art."
Caudill's sculptures have struck a chord with individuals seeking everything from the stylistic to the sublime. Caudill's welded stainless steel sculptures are often used as unique trellises.
"People are taking some of their resourcefulness and money and are trying to make themselves happy," says Caudill. "Whether through whimsical or serious art, people are still constructing this nest. Tending the lawn and landscape and planting trees that will last through generations changes everything about an individual's relation to the land. People become more nurturing."

Where to Find Kentucky Yard Art

Bandana/Yardbirds Inc.
Richard Kolb
2921 South Second Street
Louisville, KY 40208
(800) 828-9247
Metal sculptures made from recycled machinery parts and garden tools

Creature Comforts by Erica
Erica M. Kirchner
8213 Wolf Pen Branch Road
Prospect, KY 40059
(502) 228-3597
Contemporary copper garden insects and flowers, hanging sculptures, and cat guardians

Designed for You
Debbie Eoff
P.O. Box 1831
Ashland, KY 41105
(606) 928-6828
Suncatchers, plant sticks, lamps, angels, steppingstones

Gastineau Jewelry
Ken and Sally Gastineau
135 N. Broadway
Berea, KY 40403
(859) 986-9158
Steel sculptures

Hart-Art
Joe and Karen Hart
2245 Talbott Avenue
Louisville, KY 40205
(502) 262-7766
www.sprinklerart.com
Copper sprinkler sculptures and other garden accessories

Howard Wilson Design
Howard and Nancy Wilson
1012 Cherokee Road
Louisville, KY 40204
(502) 456-6168
Metal patio sculptures and garden hang-up sticks

Images
Stephen Ramsey
H.C. 72, Box 71
Monticello, KY 42633
(606) 340-0612
Wire horse sculptures

Kaleidoscope Stained Glass
Cliff Kennedy
704 Main Street
Covington, KY 41011
(859) 491-2222
Stained-glass garden stakes, wind chimes, trellises, and steppingstones

Kentucky Critters
Ronald and Charity Foster
557 Asbury Road
Augusta, KY 41002
(606) 728-2013
Metal garden bugs on a stick

Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation
609 W. Main Street
Louisville, KY 40202
(502) 589-0102
The gallery carries a variety of crafts from Kentucky artists. "Summer Sizzle Garden Sale" during June on select garden art when using discount card

Kirkwood Studio
P.J. Campbell and Louise D'Amours
17324 Kirkwood Drive
Catlettsburg, KY 41129
(606) 928-7488
Decorative and painted steel sculptures

Miller's Metal Works
Larry Miller
4005 Sirate Lane
Louisville, KY 40229
(502) 969-5302
Ornamental sculpture for the home and garden

The Promenade Gallery
Kathy West
204 Center Street
Berea, KY 40403
Toll-free (877) 986-1609
The shop carries the craftworks of many Kentucky artists

The Studios of Dave Caudill
1261 Willow Avenue
Louisville, KY 40204
(502) 454-4769
Stainless steel garden art: trellises, planters, tables

Timmy's Welding & Ornamental Works
John Salings
5640 Hwy. 44 West
Shepherdsville, KY 40165
(502) 543-8440
Pencil-rod welded furniture and
sculptures

Underwood Fine Metal Arts
Jeff Underwood
1540 Shore Acres
Frankfort, KY 40601
(859) 873-9565
Animal and flower garden art

Weidlich Studios
Brian H. Weidlich
3385 Boston Road
Lexington, KY 40503
(859) 223-2166
Glass and metal sculptures and
contemporary stained-glass panels

William M. and Sherrolyn Duffy
103 Northwestern Parkway
Louisville, KY 40212
(502) 772-0229
Contemporary stone sculptures

For more information about these Kentucky artists, contact the Kentucky Craft Marketing Program at (888) 592-7238, extension 4817, or visit its Web site at www.kyartsandcrafts.com.