A Texas Tale of Wild Flowers

(An apparent conversation between Agents
"P" and "R", concerning the new parking
lot, prompted this piece...)

Chapman Kelley is the artist who originally had the idea of
"painting" the median areas of the DFW International AirPort
with flowers.

His vision was to create carpets of wild flowers that would bloom in
sequence and breath taking vistas of Texas's indigenous bloomers.
Unfortunately, after a few years the DFW ground crews got tired of
the "dried out look" that occurs as the natural process of "going-to-seed"
that the "weeds" went through. And, they decided to chop them all down
and just put in grass (or concrete, or something pretty mundane like that).

However, there are actually TWO happy endings:

This so-inspired Lady Bird Johnson (the first lady of Texas) to found
the wild-flower projects that we see all across our cities now.  However,
the process of "ignorance" has been avoided by the addition of the
little signs that say:
    Excuse our wild flowers.
    We are growing seeds for
         next year.

Thus, these care takers have been educated so as to wait until the "weeds"
dry up and go to "seed".




Next, Mr. Kelley was invited up to Chicago to beautify that toddlin' old
town.  And (again using the wild flowers indiginous to that area of the
world), created scultures of the flower-kind.  Of course, the carefully
detailed designs have "blurred" a little over the years (for these are
flowers with their own sense of purpose, destiny, and art).




So, everytime you're driving along and come upon a city, and notice
that "somehow" they actually have managed to re-create a snap-shot of
the way things were a hundred years ago.  Wehl, I guess you can give
old Chapman Kelley a re-member or two.






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