Backyard
1972 Coal, ice, this backyard and lemons.
Two tons pea-size anthracite coal covered the entire central area of this 20’ x 60’ yard of crumbling garden structures in a seemingly forgotten neighborhood of Baltimore, Md. Seventy-two standard, commercially available, 3’ x 2’ x 1’, 300-pound cakes of ice were laid closely packed as a single mass 12’ x 36’, stacked two high, centered over the coal. Six dozen lemons, bought at the neighborhood outdoor market, were placed on the ice at a point suggested by a pre-existing old garden path.
This backyard, still resonating of past efforts to make a simple family garden, a place for an afternoon barbecue with lemonade and the children, significantly inflected this piece. As the ice melted during the following weeks it changed daily in color and form, from clear to white to blue or green and to white again responding to changes in the weather as it melted and sank through the coal into the earth. The grid pattern formed by the cakes of ice ultimately biased the re-distribution of the lemons nudging them toward a geometric formality, then leaving them alone, repositioned on the coal when all the ice was gone.
This backyard, still resonating of past efforts to make a simple family garden, a place for an afternoon barbecue with lemonade and the children, significantly inflected this piece. As the ice melted during the following weeks it changed daily in color and form, from clear to white to blue or green and to white again responding to changes in the weather as it melted and sank through the coal into the earth. The grid pattern formed by the cakes of ice ultimately biased the re-distribution of the lemons nudging them toward a geometric formality, then leaving them alone, repositioned on the coal when all the ice was gone.