The Unremarkable Pink Flamingo Lawn Ornament

First designed in 1957, the fake birds are natives not of Florida but of Leominster, Massachusetts, which bills itself as the Plastics Capital of the World. At a nearby art school, sculptor Don Featherstone was hired by the plastics company Union Products, where his second assignment was to sculpt a pink flamingo. Don was unable to acquire live flamingos to serve as his models, so his original sculptures were created based on an image from National Geographic. The inherent kitsch of the pink flamingo sculpture won it an instant place in pop culture as it began to decorate lawns across the country. As a result of his creation, imitators sprung up across American lawns, forcing Don to add his signature to each bird's body beneath the wing tips to the genuine article to distinguish it from off-brand flamingos. Featherstone lawn flamingos are sold in pairs, one with its head up and the other bent as if searching for food. The initial offering of lawn flamingos in the 1957 Sears catalogue included the following instructions: "Place in garden, lawn, to beautify landscape". They sold for $2.76 a pair. Unfortunately by the late 1960s, the lawn flamingo had been degraded to a tacky kitschy lawn ornament and were banished from lawns across America. It was a dark time for the iconic lawn flamingo. The original design continued to be produced in increasingly smaller numbers by Union Products until they closed in late 2006. Some few lawn flamingo habitats remained until the rights to the molds and copyright were purchased by Cado Products. Pairs of pink lawn flamingos once again began production in 2007, and have once again begun to migrate across American lawns.