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2002-04-10 - 7:29 a.m.

We Missouri Hillbillies may be a little bit country, we may run the ridges barefoot and we may talk funny, but we also have a passion for objets d'art. In fact, we're connoisseurs of art. Oh, yessiree, Bob, we're so proud of our art we display it in our yards. And we have a name for our hillbilly yard art, we call our charming outdoor collections y'art.

And never let it be said we're not ingenious people. Our y'art isn't purely for display, our yard art is multi-purpose. We get as much use out of it as we can.

Take all those rusted-out S-10 pickups we stack on cement blocks in our back yards and the old 70's LTDs--minus the vinyl on their landau tops--consuming the better part of our side yards. These are more than handsome, if somewhat cumbersome, lawn ornaments. They also serve as extensions to our homes. The pickups make great decks, and almost any summer evening our menfolk will be lounging in the back bed putting a healthy dent in a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and blustering about their deer kills. When family visits from Arkansas, one or two might bed down in the LTD.

Keeping with the automotive theme in our y'art, we like to use old tires as flower containers, garnishing them with spring tulips or daffodils, then later with petunias, snap dragons and spindly geraniums. Sometimes we forgo the flowers and let the prehistoric tires lay around the yard unadorned.

We consider couches leisure time y’art. But we're discriminating in our choice of style and color. We favor early American or art deco in burnt orange, gold or avacado. Not only do these open-air sofas add color and squalor to our yards, they also serve as lawn furniture. As owners of this y'art, we're always ready to hunker down and entertain under the stars when friends call on Saturday night. Some clever folks keep a large, galvanized wash tub by the couches and fill them with ice and Pabst, cutting down on superfluous trips to the icebox in the kitchen.

We don’t use much Adirondack or wrought iron spring back lawn furniture in our y’art collections. No, we like those old metal lawn chairs, and we like them best with a dozen or more coats of peeling red or green paint and their tube bases cancerous with rust. Another furniture art favorite is the lawn stool, constructed from a large coil car spring and a metal seat off grandpappy’s tractor and secured in the ground with a bucket of cement. These stool statues sprout all over our yards.

In addition to the tractor seat, other blacksmith sculpture is also popular. Much of the y’art is created from springs, horseshoes, wrenches, rebar, heavy steel--just about any metal piled up in our lean-to sheds. The sculptors design horses, cats, dogs, bees, Amish men and women, and rabbits. Opossums seem to be best-sellers. We plant these in our gardens, or anywhere else we don’t have tires or couches or S-10 pickups. The Smoking Crows are great yard additions. Standing five feet tall, they’re made from rebar and heavy steel, and have either a cigarette or cigar in their beak. Although not exactly designed for the coffee table, they dress up any yard and make great conversation pieces. The Smoking Crows are often found standing near our couches so we have something to talk about on Saturday nights under the stars.

Plaster of paris and cement are excellent mediums for y’art. Plaster of paris jackasses, with curious Dalmatian spots, hooked to little wooden wagons are filled with petunias--or maybe discarded Pabst cans or Skoal tins or carburetors from the LTD, or the rack off last winter’s deer. And lions are popular in our animal y’art series. Big cement lion heads flank our driveways and porch steps. Little squirrel families hang from trees. But we’re especially fond of immortalizing our farm animals in cement and allowing them to graze in our yards. Horses, cows, hawgs and sheep feed under trees and surround our above ground swimpools.

Wood crafts are fashionable y’art. Animals are preferred, especially rabbits, hawgs and opossums, but wooden cutouts of the backsides of people are also popular. Ma, dressed in red and white polka dots, is usually displayed in gardens, bent over flashing her broad behind to the road, while Pa, in overalls, is standing next to the house with his back to us doing gawd know’s what. Occasionally a couple of little wooden Kettles are hanging around in the yard with Ma and Pa.

Some decorations intended as seasonal end up as year-round ornaments. Hand-made pine reindeer and plastic Santas and sleighs, elves and snowmen make our yards festive year-round. The Missouri Hillbilly isn't lazy, but he is labor efficient: Why take those damnable Christmas things to storage when they have to be hauled out again next November! And lights remain on houses throughout the year, and houses are ablaze again on July Fourth.

One of the newest forms of hillbilly y’art is chainsaw sculpture, the most popular piece being an oak log with the homeowner’s name carved out of the middle. This is another example of our multi-purpose yard art. The carved up log adds splendor to our yards, but it's also a homing device, telling us where we live in case we’ve stayed too long on the burnt orange couch sipping Pabst and discussing the intricate design and beauty of the Smoking Crow.

Although some Missouri hillbillies have a lawn jockey, these aren’t chic y’art, and the few exhibited are painted white with red, white and blue shirts and britches. Nor do we have many pink flamingos in our yards. We don’t want to be confused with the long-haired, hippy freaks in south Florida. However, the creme de la creme of the yard art collection, proudly displayed in the yards of the hoity-toity hillbilly, is the Amish buggy. The little black buggie is y’art with social status!

Wind art is the latest craze in outdoor decorating. Big wind pieces and little wind pieces in bright purples, reds, yellows, oranges, blues and greens litter our yards. The birds, flowers, pinwheels, butterflies and animals twirl and spin and add a whimsical touch to our otherwise dull lawns.

If you've a hankerin for lawn decorations, ya'll need to come on over to Missouri. Flea markets thrive on y’art and on weekends are crawling with hillbillies looking to add to their collections. Missouri Highway 54, winding through the Ozark hills, is lined with large warehouses specializing in yard art. Wood. Plaster of paris. Cement. Metal. You want it, we've got it aplenty is these hills and hollers.

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