SAN FRANCISCO -- A sculpture made of driftwood, duck bones and oily junk from coastal mudflats will join other makeshift characters in a zany and unusual contest for scarecrows.
The creation of artist Pam Dixon is one of 33 entries in the first Urban Scarecrow Competition at the San Francisco Fair, which opens Friday and offers everything from drama on the Gold Rush days to a gala singles celebration called appropriately, 'Fair Game.'
Dixon said her scarecrow was built from bones of dead ducks, stones coated with tar and other 'gunk' she said came from oil refineries in the vicinity of the Contra Costa County town of Benicia.
'We live with the refineries, but we're also being poisoned by them,' said Dixon, who plastered the junk on a board she found floating in the water and which had the word 'peace' imprinted on it. She made a face from a smashed bucket found in the middle of a highway, added torn fish net and connected the totem-pole-like results to the seat of an old office chair with wheels on it.
'It's too heavy to carry, but I can push it around on the wheels,' Dixon said. 'She's really quite awesome and although she didn't scare the birds from my backyard, she frightened off the kids.'
Some 2,500 artists were invited to make scarecrows to frighten urban pests, but which had to be made of materials of little or no intrinsic value. The first prize is $200 and a blue ribbon.
When the fair ends, the selected works will be enshrined on the mudflats of Emeryville on the east side of San Francisco Bay until they disintegrate.
An exception will be Jim Torlakson's scarecrow, a 5-foot-2 mannequin draped with various artifacts such as a World War I helmet and gas mask, strange clothes, hiking boots and holding a broad ax and a fencing sword.
Torlakson said his 'peculiar character,' dubbed 'George,' won't accept any awards since it will go back to his San Francisco studio, where it normally stands guard over various artistic accroutements.
'It probably would scare away just about anything, especially urbanites,' Torlakson said. 'Animals might actually like it.'
