Danny Katz: I've failed in all the kinds of art-creation, but not garden art

Nothing can bring a dull, drab garden to life like a piece of garden-art, NOTHING! Some people think it’s plants and trees and pretty flowers, but nah, it’s art.

It could be a beautiful outdoor wall-mural, partly inspired by the Mexican muralist folk-art movement of the 1920s, partly inspired by a barnyard-animal stencil-idea off a segment on Better Homes and Gardens.

It could be an enchanting bird-themed garden-pond with terracotta owls, ceramic ducks, scrap-metal flamingos, and right in the middle of the pond, a floating headless cat-mauled Myna bird.

It could be a single magnificent stone Buddha-head, transported all the way from a distant exotic location – an Asian import store in Craigieburn.

People love garden-art, and with this in mind, I’ve been creating a few outdoor-artworks of my own – mostly because I’ve failed in all the kinds of art-creation that happen indoors.

And this is the point; garden-art doesn’t require a whole lot of artistic ability – you can just toss some random junk in a flowerbed and ta-daaaa, you’ve got a post-modern reflection of urban decay in a non-linear context, even though it’s just a rusty totem tennis pole wrapped in chicken wire, with a kiddies windmill poking out the top.

So for your artistic enjoyment, here are some of my finest DIY garden masterpieces…

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The Pathway of Love and Despair (2015)

I created a bunch of mosaic stepping stones by glueing broken bits of glass and crockery onto garden pavers, then I laid the pavers across the front yard as a self-revelatory exploration of deconstructed domesticity – and also, a self-revelatory exploration of the effects of clumsily-stacked dishwashers.

It’s an immersive piece as well: if I walk along my pathway without shoes, I’ll slash my feet in 47 different places.

Gail’s Great Big Balls (2016)

I bought a couple of cheap plastic $2 basketballs from Gail’s Goodies Discount Store, then I drilled holes into the top, filled the balls with wet concrete, and when the concrete dried, I cut the balls open to reveal … two concrete balls that examine tarnished consumerism within a multi-dimensional politicised narrative – and also examine how a person should not make concrete balls if they’ve never worked with concrete before.

Anyway, I’ve put the saggy, cracked, shapeless “balls” on the patio and everyone who visits the house has the same visceral reaction: they say “Wow. What a waste of a two perfectly good plastic $2 basketballs from Gail’s Goodies.”

Prancing Half-Arsed Horse (2017)

Possibly my proudest achievement: an enormous life-sized horse-sculpture made entirely out of old wire coathangers – it was actually meant to be a prancing camel, but my beloved wouldn’t let me take any more coathangers from our cupboard so I couldn’t finish the hump.

Prancing Half-Arsed Horse is an example of conceptual abstraction where an object can look like anything the artist chooses, which is why my horse looks more like a gigantic bat virus. But still, it brings tremendous joy and wonderment to all who set eyes on it, which happens to be just me, because it’s hidden behind the shed, near the back corner, beside the compost bin.

My beloved felt this spot really highlighted its stark, transcendent power. I think she may be right.