During a residency at the HUB-BUB Arts Initiative in Spartanburg, South Carolina, myself and fellow artist-in-residence Leah Brown were asked by the city to construct an outdoor piece drawing attention to the land preservation efforts being made by the community. This posed a challenge for both of us, as I had never made any kind of work outdoors, and neither one of us had ever undertaken a public project of such magnitude. After some brainstorming with local non-profit conservancy SPACE, historical research, and more than a couple beers, we decided to create a full scale wedding consisting entirely of scarecrows. For a site, we chose the wetland marsh in the Cottonwood Trail Nature Preserve. To the right is Leah’s photoshop sketch of the project.

Once our concept was in place, Leah and I went about procuring the necessary materials. A local lumber yard donated all of the wood needed for the project, and bales and bales of hay were purchased from a farm supply. Incredibly, almost every piece of clothing we used was purchased from a single, amazing thrift store at the edge of town called “Katherine’s Hidden Treasures.” We paid $60 for enough clothes for almost fifty people.

We utilized the unoccupied first floor of the HUB-BUB building as a construction space. Over the course of the next month, for roughly eight hours a day every day, the two of us built, dressed and stuffed over 40 scarecrow men, women, children and babies. The photos below were taken by Jeffrey Young of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

Once constructed, Leah and I moved them from our makeshift factory out to the Cottonwood Trail. Once there, we donned our borrowed waders, and prepared ourselves for the daunting task of getting in the swamp water in February and staking them in the mud.  

After two crappy days, all of the scarecrows, including the bride and groom, had been successfully staked in the cold, wet mud. The finished product looked like this.

Our good friend and fellow artist-in-residence Justin Plakas shot some beautiful photos of the finished piece. Here are several of them below-you can click on them to see them larger.

Pretty nice, aren’t they? We were all pretty excited when they made their way onto the Wooster Collective.

The Scarecrow Wedding was opened to the public on Valentine’s Day, 2007. Many, many people came out for our reception, which included a homemade wedding cake, and champagne in the woods.

To date, Scarecrow Wedding is the largest project either Leah or myself have ever undertaken, and absolutely one of the most rewarding. I sincerely hope we can work together again in the future.