The Mark of Lantana

Lantana Projects recently had a couple of really interesting posts on their blog about guerrilla gardening. First they posted a how-to, followed by visual how-to about encasing lantana seeds in a clay or mud projectile, flinging them into an empty lot around Memphis and waiting for your guerilla garden to grow. Wonderful!

If Lantana had their very own breed of Lantana we'd know "Lantana is here" when the guerilla landscape blooms.

They've also had some great discussions about the the UM Graffiti Art project. My thoughts, coming from an uneducated perspective: 1) I like it -- the more public art the better; 2) the fact that there were no artists of color should no less be a problem if it were some other form than graffiti art; 3) if someone shows up tonight and paints heroic images of Che Guevara and Herman Morris on top of the original works, or a tableau depicting the historic exploitation of workers at the hands of multinational athletic departments, should the new artist be in trouble? Have they destroyed or mutilated the original work, or have they brought it closer to perfection?

Finally, Smart City Memphis' Tom Jones, guest-blogging on the CEOs for Cities blog, posted a great article about Lantana. My only comment is Lantana's own post about this attention was titled "Lantana Projects Featured Nationally." Hopefully the attention will bring new audiences, new artists, new funding, but that's about audience size, not geographic scope of audience. The scope has existed as long their website. Lantana is featured nationally -- internationally -- there all the time.