Standing nearly six feet tall and arranged in neat rows between ziggurat-like office buildings, 109 molded concrete ears of corn guard a busy intersection in the Columbus suburb of Dublin, Ohio. The art installation, Field of Corn with Osage Orange Trees by sculptor Malcolm Cochran, can baffle unprepared passersby. Are these stark white erections tiny missile silos? Tombstones? Teeth? Klansmen playing freeze-tag?
Thus begins a cheeky article called "From Mulberries to Machines: Planting the Simulated Garden," published in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 15 years ago. It wasn't my first article in an academic journal, but it drew on a section of my dissertation so I'd been working on the topic for what felt like a very long time. From that field of fake corn grew my entire academic career.
I don't spend much time in Columbus these days but this morning I paid a repeat visit to Field of Corn with Osage Orange Trees. The property once belonged to an agriculturalist studying corn hybridization, but I'm sure he never envisioned an ear of corn six feet tall. Early settlers planted osage orange trees close together to serve as hedges along property lines, but it's unusual to see osage oranges standing in the middle of the city, occasionally dropping a hedge apple to the ground with a thunk.
Even early on a Saturday morning, a steady swish of traffic whizzed past as I wandered among the artificial ears. I could wax poetic about how Field of Corn makes visible the various meanings inscribed on this particular plot of land over the centuries, but mostly the whole experience just makes me smile. A simulated garden in the middle of a city! Someone should write about that.
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