| Plastic flamingo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Don Featherstone |
| Year | 1957 |
| Type | Sculpture |
Pink plastic flamingos are a common lawn ornament in the United States.
| Plastic flamingo | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Artist | Don Featherstone |
| Year | 1957 |
| Type | Sculpture |
Pink plastic flamingos are a common lawn ornament in the United States.
The American artist Don Featherstone designed the pink lawn flamingo in 1957, naming the first Diego. His lawn flamingo, mass-produced by his employer, Union Products, of Leominster, Massachusetts, has since become an icon of pop culture [1] that won him the Ig Nobel Prize for Art in 1996. It has even spawned a spoof lawn greeting industry that installs flocks of pink flamingos on a victim's lawn in the dark of night. After the release of John Waters's 1972 movie Pink Flamingos , [2] plastic flamingos came to be the stereotypical example of lawn kitsch. [1]
Many imitation products have found their way onto front lawns and store shelves since then. Genuine pink flamingos made by Union Products from 1987 (the 30th anniversary of the plastic flamingo) until 2001 can be identified by the signature of Don Featherstone on the rear underside. These official flamingos were sold in pairs, one standing upright and the other with its head low to the ground, "feeding". Sometime after Featherstone's retirement in 2000, Union Products began producing birds without the signature. In December 2001, the Annals of Improbable Research (bestowers of the Ig Nobel prize) teamed up with the Museum of Bad Art to protest this omission in the form of a boycott. [3] Union Products stopped production of pink flamingos on November 1, 2006.
HMC International LLC, a subsidiary of Faster-Form Corporation, purchased the copyright and plastic molds of Featherstone's original plastic flamingos in 2007. HMC sub-contracted production of the flamingos to Cado Manufacturing, Inc., a blow-molder located in Leominster, Massachusetts, who specialized in this type of production. [4] In 2010, Cado Manufacturing purchased the copyrights and the entire Union Products product line, including the pink flamingo, from HMC.
In the media and fiction, plastic flamingos are often used as a symbol of kitsch, bad taste and cheapness. The movie Pink Flamingos is named after them and helped them become an icon of trash and kitsch.
In 2009, the city of Madison, Wisconsin, Common Council designated the plastic flamingo as the city's official bird. [5] The city's soccer club, Forward Madison FC, uses the plastic flamingo on its logo. [6]
Some homeowners associations forbid the installation of plastic flamingos and similar lawn ornaments, and will fine offending owners, [7] on the basis that such decorations lower the neighborhood's real estate values.
In 2024, as a political statement, some homeowners painted their pink plastic flamingoes blue, to indicate support for Harris-Walz over Trump-Vance in the Presidential election. This was reported mainly in retirement communities in the southern US, where neighborhood associations often forbid the posting of political lawn signs.[ citation needed ]
Madison is the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Dane County. The population was 269,840 as of the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee, and the 77th-most populous in the United States. The Madison metropolitan area had a population of 680,796. The city is located on an isthmus and lands surrounding five lakes—Lake Mendota, Lake Monona, Lake Wingra, Lake Kegonsa and Lake Waubesa. Madison was founded in 1836 and is named after American Founding Father and President James Madison.
Leominster is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the second-largest city in Worcester County, with a population of 43,222 at the 2023 census. Leominster is located north of Worcester and northwest of Boston. Both Route 2 and Route 12 pass through Leominster. Interstate 190, Route 13, and Route 117 all have starting/ending points in Leominster. Leominster is bounded by Fitchburg and Lunenburg to the north, Lancaster to the east, Sterling and Princeton to the south, and Westminster to the west.
Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas, and two species native to Afro-Eurasia.
Lewy body dementia (LBD) is an umbrella term for two similar and common subtypes of dementia: dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Both are characterized by changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. The two conditions have similar features and may have similar causes, and are believed to belong on a spectrum of Lewy body disease that includes Parkinson's disease. As of 2014, they were more often misdiagnosed than any other common dementia.
Pink Flamingos is a 1972 American black comedy film by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977). The film stars the countercultural drag queen Divine as a criminal living under the name of Babs Johnson, who is proud to be "the filthiest person alive". While living in a trailer with her mother Edie, son Crackers, and companion Cotton, Divine is confronted by the Marbles, a pair of criminals envious of her reputation who try to outdo her in filth. The characters engage in several grotesque, bizarre, and explicitly crude situations, and upon the film's re-release in 1997 it was rated NC-17 by the MPAA "for a wide range of perversions in explicit detail". It was filmed in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, where Waters and most of the cast and crew grew up.
The roseate spoonbill is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae. It is a resident breeder in both South and North America. The roseate spoonbill's pink color is diet-derived, consisting of the carotenoid pigment canthaxanthin, like the American flamingo.
Kiwiana are certain items and icons from New Zealand's heritage, especially from around the middle of the 20th century, that are seen as representing iconic New Zealand elements. These "quirky things that contribute to a sense of nationhood" include both genuine cultural icons and kitsch.
Marshmallow creme is a marshmallow confectionery spread similar in flavor, but not texture, to regular solid marshmallow. One brand of marshmallow creme is Marshmallow Fluff, which is used to make the fluffernutter sandwich, a New England classic comfort food which debuted in 1918 in Massachusetts, just a year after marshmallow creme was invented.
A garden ornament or lawn ornament is a non-plant item used for garden, landscape, and park enhancement and decoration.
The American flamingo is a large species of flamingo native to the West Indies, northern South America and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo, and was formerly considered conspecific with the greater flamingo, but that treatment is now widely viewed as incorrect due to a lack of evidence. It is also known as the Caribbean flamingo, although it is also present in the Galápagos Islands. It is the only flamingo that naturally inhabits North America along with the Neotropical realm.
Donald Featherstone was an American artist most widely known for his 1957 creation of the plastic pink flamingo while working for Union Products. Featherstone resided in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where he kept 57 plastic flamingos on his back lawn. Featherstone and his wife Nancy dressed alike for over 35 years.
Larnaca Salt Lake is a complex network of four salt lakes of different sizes to the west of the city of Larnaca. The largest is lake Aliki, followed by lake Orphani, lake Soros and lake Spiro. They form the second largest salt lake in Cyprus after the Limassol Salt Lake. The total surface area of the lakes adds up to 2.2 km2 and being just off the road leading to Larnaca International Airport, the lake is one of the most distinctive landmarks of the area. It is considered one of the most important wetlands of Cyprus and it has been declared a Ramsar site, Natura 2000 site, Special Protected Area under the Barcelona Convention and an Important Bird Area (IBA). It is surrounded by halophytic scrubland and on its bank lies the Hala Sultan Tekke, one of the holiest of shrines within Ottoman Islam. It houses the tomb of Umm Haram, Muhammad's 'wet-nurse'.
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Marysville, Ohio, where O.M. Scott began selling lawn seed in 1868. The company manufactures and sells consumer lawn, garden and pest control products, as well as soilless indoor gardening equipment. In the U.S., the company manufactures Scotts, Miracle-Gro and Ortho brands. It also markets and distributes the herbicide Roundup in the U.S. and several international markets including China.
On a residential area, a front yard or front garden is the portion of land between the street and the front of the house. If it is covered in grass, it may be referred to as a front lawn. The area behind the house, usually more private, is the back yard or back garden. Yard and garden share an etymology and have overlapping meanings.
Pink money describes the purchasing power of the LGBT community, often especially with respect to political donations. With the rise of the LGBT rights movement, pink money has gone from being a fringe or marginalized market to a thriving industry in many parts of the Western world such as the United States and United Kingdom. Many businesses now specifically cater to gay customers, including nightclubs, shops, restaurants, and even taxicabs; the demand for these services stems from common discrimination by traditional businesses.
Charles Starr is an American politician and farmer in Oregon. He served as a Republican member of the Oregon Legislature for 14 years, serving in both houses. A native of Texas, Starr served in the Oregon State Senate with his son Bruce Starr, the first time in Oregon's history a father and son served in the Senate together.
The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos is a 2008 British-American nature documentary that explores the great gathering of lesser flamingos which occurs every year at Lake Natron in Tanzania and along the salt lakes of the African Rift Valley. It was the first film released under the then-new Disneynature film label through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It premiered in France on 26 October 2008, with narration by Zabou Breitman. The film was released in theatres in the UK on 29 September 2009 and direct-to-video in the United States on 19 October 2010 with narration by Mariella Frostrup.
Gnomeo & Juliet is a 2011 animated romantic comedy film directed by Kelly Asbury from a screenplay by Rob Sprackling and John Smith. It is loosely based on the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and features the voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Maggie Smith, Ashley Jensen, Stephen Merchant, Matt Lucas, Jim Cummings, Julie Walters, Richard Wilson, Patrick Stewart, and Ozzy Osbourne. The story follows Gnomeo and Juliet, a pair of garden gnomes who fall in love, but due to the feud between their respective families, they must find a way to keep their blossoming romance a secret.
Forward Madison FC is an American professional soccer team based in Madison, Wisconsin. The team was founded in 2018, and played its inaugural season in 2019. The team competes in USL League One, the third division of the US soccer league system and plays their home matches at Breese Stevens Field.
Jack Latham is a British documentary photographer. His books include A Pink Flamingo (2015), made along the route of the Oregon Trail in the USA at a time of national financial hardship; and Sugar Paper Theories (2016) about the Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case in Iceland—a case of memory distrust syndrome in which six people confessed to murders they did not commit.
'We also incorporated the Official Bird of Madison, the Pink Plastic Flamingo, which was also a popular name submission by the fans,' Wilt said.
Media related to Plastic flamingos at Wikimedia Commons| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
