Peter L. Johnson

In response to the signage announcing the use of pesticides and herbicides from ChemLawn type “lawn service” companies being used in the Kenwood neighborhood in the upscale neighborhood of Minneapolis I created and installed my own poison alert signs. Kenwood is located on the shores of Lake of the Isles whose waters eventually feed into the Mississippi River and into the water supply. The signs I created were the same size as those posted by the poison purveyors. I used an image from my ecoart series, Soul of Our Nature, added the text “Our Neighbor is Poisoning Our Water”, and formatted the sign to match a typical “this lawn is chemically treated keep the pets and children off” sign. I spent the Spring and Summer walking around my neighborhood in broad daylight installing my signs next to the signs from the chemical companies. I would also document the installation with photographs. Sometimes both signs would come down in less than an hour and in other cases it would stay up for a couple weeks. In the late summer I created posters from the photographs and installed a exhibition of a group of the images from the now titled series, Our Toxic Nature, in the neighborhood. The telephone poles on the sidewalk in front of the local elementary school and deli/coffeeshop carried the show for over six months. Eventually Mother Nature in the form of weather slowly declared the show over.

"Our Toxic Nature"