Eye-popping yard art puts Tacoma on the map. My dog and I found these kitschy classics

The scent hound that slowly leads me on his drunkard’s path in a different Tacoma neighborhood each day has convinced me that every block in this city has its own special attributes.

He uses his nose to read all the recent local stories of wildlife murders, territorial disputes, garden visitations, petroleum mishaps and such. He checks his pee-mail.

When I want to move on, he quickly downloads the stories onto his fur by rolling in whatever caught his attention, so he can explore them at his leisure.

I do not share his interests nor his gifts. Instead, I spend all that time studying yardscapes.

COVID-19 has given people a lot of time to re-envision their space. On one recent walk we saw a new hand-carved totem in a front yard, a fence woven of green tree trimmings, and a very artistic lace pattern applied to a sidewalk. (Done, I learned from the resident artist, by power washing an old die cut rubber doormat one rectangle at a time.)

This was in a block that already had inlaid mosaic steps and Versailles quality topiary.

I love yard art. I am a fan of the seasonal displays. I like the concrete versions of gargoyles and gnomes. I am a sucker for a flock of pink plastic flamingos.

As a matter of fact, the more whimsical and out of scale it is, the more I love it. (Full disclosure: Fifty years ago, my younger brother painted a 30-foot tall Mickey Mouse on the side of our barn in Whitsett, North Carolina, while our parents were out of town. It survives and is a Google map landmark today.)

Recently, I was making my way home from South Tacoma when I spotted a fiberglass Holstein and her calf grazing contentedly next to a reindeer in a front yard.

The cows looked to be strays from a Mattress Ranch. I didn’t quite get the reindeer. But, I give dioramaists a lot of slack. They found meaning in the pairing. I am merely there to enjoy it.

A few blocks closer to home, I saw a yard sale sign. I went deep into a neighborhood looking and did not find the sale, but something caught my eye. It was a 12-foot-tall concrete replica of an iconic Easter Island head.

I stopped in mid street to grab a photo. The neighbor came out to see what I was up to, then the owner and his dog.

I explained to them how much I admired the art. The owner told me how he acquired it and transferred it to his property.

A friend’s dad made it by driving rebar into his yard, building a concrete pad, shaping chicken wire to the above-ground rebar, and applying a little wet concrete after work each day until he was happy with the outcome.

The artist died. His wife planned to sell the house and asked if anyone wanted the head. The present owner drove over with a forklift, gently pulled it out of the ground, cut off the below-ground rebar and forklifted it a few blocks to its new home.

I have few regrets in life. That I wasn’t there to see that is one of them.

He asked if I had noticed his pterodactyl in the back yard. Oh my. If outsized whimsical yard art had a magnetic north, this yard in South Tacoma was it.

He explained how he had cut the metal with a torch and welded it together. I still don’t get how he erected it on a metal pole like that, but there’s no need to understand an artist’s methods to appreciate the art.

We have some wonderful art museums in Tacoma. I love visiting them.

But you don’t need to shower up and put on clean clothes to go to an art exhibit. Notice what your neighbors have been up to. Walk around a little.

If you need an excuse, I’ll loan you my scent hound.

Chuck Kleeberg, a Tacoma resident for most of the last 40-plus years, is retired from public service. He was one of six featured News Tribune reader columnists in 2018.

This story was originally published May 28, 2021 at 12:00 PM.