Today began by meeting up with Monica who is our local gardening expert and who had agreed to be the master planner for the edible garden and who turned up with a bunch of cutting’s from her own backyard. Monica told us that there were lots of nurseries in the area so we headed off in search of a good deal for plants. While driving along a sign offering “free plants” caught our eye and we pulled over. We found ourselves in a massive nursery centre which had a greenhouse full of end-of-season veggie plants which were 25 cents a punnet. We found some amazing gems – cucumbers, peppers, watermelons, eggplants, squash, chillies, okra and jalapenos. Excited by our huge haul of veggies we set off in search of some bright flowers to add some colour. Anna was determined to get an echinacea plant – which started us on the hunt for edible flowers including chamomile and red yarrow. We also raided the herb hothouse and got some sage, orange mint, peppermint, apple mint, chives, basil, thyme, lemon thyme and oregano. We also got some bright pink Bumblebee catchers (complete with a few bees), rhubarb, white raspberries, blue berries. With two groaning trollies of plants we made it to the checkout – only to have our plants come in over budget. After chatting with the woman who worked at the nursery about what the plants were for – she gave us a massive discount and we left with two cars stuffed full on plants.
When we got back to the house Robert from Higher Art was hard at work and a beautiful sign ReMake Estate was already gracing the front of the house. We had to dash off to do some interviews and left Duane, Monica, Anna, Jillian and Mike to plan and plant the garden.
We had arranged to meet Dawn and her two sons Treylan (10) and Terry (7) who had burned up the dance floor at the MJ Memorial. When we arrived Dawn told us the boys were up stairs and waiting to “make an entrance”. When the boys came down stairs they were two mini-Michaels – complete with a hand painted silver glove and socks. We decided to shoot in the nearby carpark and the boys told us they had chosen two solo songs each; Smooth Criminal, Wanna be Startin Something, Bad and Billie Jean – they also danced to Working Day and Night as a duo. For the next half an hour we saw some amazing moves including moonwalking, crotch grabs, toe stands, strutting, hat throwing and spins. Their mum was on the sidelines semi-directing, semi-cheering – yelling things like “work it out, Trey” and “Build it up”. She had told some of her family and friends about the dance film shoot and they had arrived to form a small but eager crowd of spectators.
We then drove to meet Sam’s dad for an interview – he was one of the few white people to vote for Richard Hatcher when he won the 1967 election. We couldn’t get hold of Sam to get the address – so we had to follow our instincts to find our way back to their place. We were also hampered by not knowing either his parents names so we were looking for “mum and dad” at unknown address in Merriville. A further barrier was that the area where Sam’s “mum and dad” live is full of white houses with immaculate lawns which, to us, all looked the same in a curly collection of suburban streets. After several false starts and wrong turns we managed to remember the name of their street and pull up outside their house to find Tom and Pam (as we found out their names were) entertaining some friends for a BBQ – blithly unaware that their son had scheduled an interview with us. Tom took it in his stride however and downed his beer and stepped outside for an interview. To his suprise we had in tow three white perspex pyramids which we had made up to integrate our interviews in with the Emerald City props in The Wiz. As he was pretty loosened up by the beers he had been enjoying with his friends in his backyard just previously he seemed pretty unfazed as he rather articulately answered our questions about Gary and The Wiz.
When we finally got back to the garden it looked amazing and was all in the ground. Anna tells us how it went:
“The planting was masterminded by Monica who quickly laid things out on the prepared beds and oversaw a small but willing crowd of volunteers. Robert, the airbrush guy, has a huge family (16 kids) and many of them were in attendance. Leeroy, one of his younger boys seems to be a keen gardener and took it upon himself to water in all the seedlings as they were transferred into the ground. Mike and Duane ferried water into the water reservoir by bucket from a neighbour’s tap across the road as the reservoir hasn’t had much of a chance to catch rainwater since it was installed yesterday but there were a couple of inches in the bottom of the tank this morning so we know the water catchment system functions.
The garden and mural is generating considerable interest and so we had a number of visitors during the day: Ted, a local photographer, dropped by and lined up an interview with a local newspaper, the local council building inspector checked out what was happening.”
