Pink Flamingos On Your Lawn

Pink Flamingos on Your Lawn

By Joseph Parish

If you see an enthusiastically married husband and wife clad in matching flamingo shirts then you are about to meet Nancy and Donald Featherstone. They claim to possess more than 40 homemade flamingo outfits and have dressed the same for the last 30 some years. Donald started work at a company called Union Products in the early 1950's, but since that time the company has gone under. Donald was fresh out of Worcester Art Museum's school, and immediately went to work for Union Products. Left with the alternative of starving to death, or designing three dimensional animals, he naturally chose the latter.

The first project, which Union Products assigned to him was to create a young girl carrying a water can and another about a small boy with his pet dog. When his superiors requested him to design a duck, Donald rushed out, and acquired a live duck for use as a model. Charlie which was the duck's name was eventually set free in Cogshall Park upon completion of the project.

For his next assignment, Donald was asked to assemble an item that would forever place him in the history books. His project was to fashion a flamingo. Although he would have desired to rush out and purchase a real flamingo to use as a model, he ended up employing pictures of flamingos from National Geographic. He began by constructing the flat silhouette and slowly building up the 3D effect by the use of clay. Don's famous Pink Flamingo was born in 1957, and finally offered to the public during the summer of 1958.

In 1996, Don received an unexpected Nobel Art Prize for his Pink Flamingo design, and was eventually offered the position of vice president of sales, even though he proclaims that he knew nothing whatsoever about the task. He believes that he was presented the position in the hope that he would develop more ideas to create and ultimately to sell. By the time he was finished with Union Products, he had effectively produced over 750 diverse patterns.

Other than introducing the Pink Flamingo at a time when the color Pink was exceptionally popular, Donald expressed no further ideas as to why the item sold as well as it did. Later products such as his ostrich, which sported a smirk on its face, unfortunately never achieved the same greatness. Don has used his active imagination to create and adorn his home with his various characters, which resulted in making one blissful home. Don suspects he has done likewise for many Families around the world.

Don's Pink Flamingo will turn 53 this year. Not only have the Featherstone family seen their famous flamingos appearing in the various antique stores, but they have authored a book on the flamingo as well. In the book, they have included results from the contest they once held on the funniest things that could be done with their plastic birds. Winning photos were included in their book entitled "The Original Pink Flamingos."

Visit me at www.wordwriter.info