A group of students at The U of M are making a collective effort to ensure that Memphis will look beautiful this spring, and they are doing it with their bare hands.
The students are building big, red flowers, taller than the average human, using a bicycle rim, an attic vent, a pole and aluminum siding. All of this is being done to support the 2002 Plant the Town Red campaign sponsored by the Memphis City Beautiful Commission and Friends of the City Beautiful, Inc.
“The purpose of Plant the Town Red is to unify the city, not only aesthetically, but also for the support of Memphis and to get everyone involved,” said Skippy Gronauer, director of Memphis City Beautiful Commission.
The campaign is a grassroots, citywide effort to promote community fellowship and pride by encouraging Memphis residents, schools, businesses and neighborhoods to Plant the Town Red with flowers, flowering shrubs and trees.
“It makes Memphis more adorable,” said Carolyn Frisch, sophomore architecture major and a participant in the Paint the Town Red campaign. “The flowers are eye candy and it makes people want to be outside.”
The group of flowers will be set on the edge of Mud Island, off Poplar Avenue, and on Patterson Avenue on the U of M campus. The students have been building the flowers for about three weeks as part of the 3-D design class in the art department at The U of M.
“It’s a good lesson for the students’,” said Greely Myatt, professor of art at The U of M. “The students names will be put on their public art.”
“It’s nice to do something you can put out for people to see and enjoy,” said Allen Floring, junior graphic design major. “That’s what it’s all about.”
The students had to present their ideas to class and even figure up a budget. The students were responsible for shopping at various stores to buy the material necessary to build the flowers.
“You have to engage art to the public,” Myatt said. “It’s like the tree that fell in the woods — nobody ever heard it.”
Planting the Town Red is a citywide effort for all citizens of Memphis to participate. The city will be distributing 191,000 seed packets of Red Zinnia flowers to every household serviced by the Memphis Solid Waste Management department. The seed packets will be delivered on regular garbage collection days and attached to the green garbage carts the week of April 15th.
“There are 650,000 residents with the Memphis proper,” Gronauer said. “Not only will they be Planting the Town Red, but also making the city clean.”
Memphis City Beautiful Commission is sponsoring and coordinating a 5-mile clean-up of the Lamar corridor from Airways to the Mississippi River the week of April 8-13. Volunteer clean- ups will be scheduled all along the corridor. After the clean up, businesses and neighborhoods will be encouraged to plant red.
So why plant the town red instead of green?
“Red stands for courage,” said Gronauer. “Planting the town red is an opportunity for people to have fun.”
