Make Your Home a Gnome-Free Zone

Is your yard home to families of little gnomes made of resin, colorful crops of concrete mushrooms, or flocks of plastic flamingos?

Worse yet, have you decorated your flower bed with a two-foot tall, plywood cut-out of a woman bending over to reveal her polka dot bloomers?

If you answered yes, you are guilty of displaying slob art. Slob Art is art designed to impress, but ironically has the opposite effect.

Slob Art can also be chosen to flaunt one's person artistic preferences in the face of what is generally considered good taste.  

It was Jean Shepard who coined the phrase Slob Art. Jean Shepherd is the man who wrote the story that became the classic movie, A Christmas Story. He has always been one of my favorite humorists. I can’t imagine anyone not being delighted with his tales of small town, American 1940’s life, peopled with the likes of Flick, Schwartz, Scut Farcus, and his own semi-autobiographical self, Shep.

Shepherd loved to poke fun of middle class tastes. Think of that lamp "my old man" wins in the movie – the leg covered in fish net stockings topped with a fringed lamp shade.

Tacky lawn art is fun and campy in a tongue-in-cheek way. But everyone's taste is different, so it's probably time to pack up your cute garden signs, concrete jockeys, and other personal decorations, once your home is for sale. 

Don't get me started on toilets recycled as planters.  

If your home is on the market, look closely at what distractions are part of your curb appeal. One birdbath is probably all you'll need for lawn art. The focus should be on the front door, and the message should be, “Come in. Normal people live here.”

If you need more clarification (and entertainment) about Slob Art, here is Jean Shepherd's narrative: