Nov

Clever Uses for Old Campaign Signs

by Janine Boylan on November 12, 2012

Campaign sign placed to attract motorists’ attention
© Janine Boylan

What’s the Life Cycle of a Campaign Sign?

From Planting to Harvest

Just a week ago, when election season was in full swing, brightly colored campaign signs were sprouting hourly along the roadside. By election day, competing candidates’ signs were jostling for each nourishing ray of motorists’ attention.

Then, suddenly, the morning after the election, nearly all the signs had been plucked away. The freeway fields were bare again.

It made me wonder: what is the life cycle of a campaign sign?

The planting season for campaign signs varies, but in California, where I live, there are rules:

It is safe to set signs in the ground no earlier than 90 days prior to an election.
They may not be in the right-of-way of any highway.
Signs have to be maintained by a responsible party who agrees to harvest them within ten days of the election.

So, if you venture out before sunrise on the morning after the election, you may see candidates and their teams out picking signs. “You’ve got to be a responsible citizen and get all the signs you put out, and even some that you didn’t,” Phil Salzer, elected to the Peoria County Board, explained.

One candidate, John Pierre Menvielle, had carefully marked each of his sign placements on a map, and, knowing where they all were, he was able to gather 400 of his signs in one day. Some candidates even make agreements to pick up one another’s signs to make the task a little easier.

Seeds for the Next Stage

Then what’s next in the life cycle of a campaign sign? It may become the seed for a clever use in its next stage:

Some signs are considered collectibles. People think of political signs as historical mementoes, so they tuck them away as souvenirs.
Some signs get replanted next election season. “We try to gather them up and clean them so we can use them in other elections,” campaign manager Dan Pelphrey said. He explained that if candidates don’t go for reelection, they might give the wire stakes to other candidates to use for their signs. (Stakes can cost from around $.25 to $1 each.)
A few signs get recycled. While many recycling centers do not accept political signs because of the various materials they are made of, some centers do collect and recycle them. So this year’s campaign sign may be one ingredient in the next generation of campaign signs.

campaign sign showing a clever use as bicycle parts

Bike sporting parts from recycled campaign signs
© Kent Peterson

Wheel Out a Very Clever Use!

Kent Peterson of Puget Sound, Washington, has a very clever use for the pulled-up signs: he carves them into bike accessories. In the photo above, the saddlebag on the back is made from a repurposed sign.

Look closely at the front and back fenders—they were once signs as well. Brilliant: using mud-slinging politicians’ signs to keep the mud from slinging onto my clothes!

Oh, I see the full life cycle of a campaign sign from planting to the consumer!

Do you know of other good uses for old campaign signs? Leave a comment.

VIA Journal Star and Imperial Valley Press

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Janine Boylan 4 Comments

Clever Ideas

Nov

An OIC Vegetable Moment

by Meredith Mullins on November 8, 2012

Endive for sale in a Normandy vegetable market gives the author an "Oh, I see" moment about the endive growing cycle

Endive for sale in a Normandy vegetable market
© Meredith Mullins

Endive Indeed

How could I have eaten endive for so many years and have no idea how it looks “in the wild” or how complex its growing process is?

How could I be so uncaring about a vegetable’s life cycle or take such a crunchy treat for granted?

It took the convergence of a Saturday morning market in Normandy and a stall dedicated solely to endives to lead me to an endive ephiphany. What is that I C?

The Bizarre Life of an Endive

I recognized the finished product easily enough, as it sat on the scale waiting to be weighed and bagged, looking like plump little rolled white cigars.

But what was that off to the side in the big red tub? It was something completely alien. The endive “bud,” perched on its root throne, looked so bizarre that I had to ask the friendly endive seller if this was normal . . . or some sort of weird mutant.

Tub of endive attached to its root, creating an "Oh, I see" moment about how the vegetable grows

Endive attached to its root
© Meredith Mullins

He looked at me as if I were some sort of weird mutant—as if the crusty root stalk and the scraggly feeder tendrils, with a proud crown of cream-colored tightly packed leaves was something every schoolchild would recognize.

Endive is in the same botanical family as chicory and is sometimes called witloof (white leaf). After the initial plant is grown in an open field, the roots are “harvested.” They are taken to storage, somewhere completely dark, to allow the endive bud to sprout in second growth. The dark room keeps the leaves from turning green.

Endive attached to its long root, providing an "Oh, I see" moment on its growth process

An “alien” endive?
© Meredith Mullins

A History as Long as Its Root

The edible endive was born by accident. The story goes like this:

A Belgian farmer was storing chicory roots in his cellar so that he could dry and roast them for coffee.
He was called to war and, when he returned, he found that the roots had sprouted small, white leaves.
Curious . . . he ate one. It was tender and crunchy.

Immediately, visions of endive salad (with tangerines and caramelized walnuts) and baked endive with ham danced in his head. OK, probably not. He was probably just craving coffee.

But, eventually, the taste of the slightly bitter endive leaf caught on and the rest is culinary history.

My Endive Epiphany

I left the market in Normandy with a memorable Oh, I see moment: I will never take another vegetable for granted. When I really stop to think, the preparation of any vegetable takes a lot of time and care. The flavor should be savored.

And when I pay 50 cents for a tasty, crunchy endive, I’ll think to myself—a two-part growing cycle that took 150 days— “50 cents is a real bargain!”

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Meredith Mullins Comments

Discoveries/France

Nov

Food Carving Puts Creative Expression on Your Plate

by Meredith Mullins on November 1, 2012

Jack-o'-lantern faces, made by food carving

It’s OK to Play with your Food

Doorsteps, stores, and fields bask in the glow of orange at the moment. It’s pumpkin time again. Good for pie making. And good for carving.

The art of creating scary jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween has been a longstanding tradition for food carving fans. But pumpkins are just the tip of the garden. Now I see creative expression in a whole genre of food art, and it’s evolving at a rapid pace.

Have Your Art and Eat It, Too

O yes, I C a whole new world. We make art out of wood, stone, metal, animal hair, hide, cloth, paper, canvas, water, mud, snow, and more—just about every element you can think of. So why not food?

Watermelon in the shape of a rose, made by for carving

Fruit and vegetable carving has been an art in Asia since ancient times. Now we have chocolate sculptures, biscuit cities, life-size butter figures, bok choy fish, eggplant penguins, and linguini portraits gracing our art and culinary worlds.

Pumpkin with a fish bas-relief made by food carving

Food artworks are fleeting. A natural decomposition, of course, takes place. This transience makes the work all the more beautiful.

For example, like British artist Andy Goldsworthy’s magnificent environmental sculptures, which last only as long as gravity, wind, and rain permit—time changes everything.

The Imagination Ingredient

The variety of materials in the food art medium is limited only by the imagination. And, as you can see by the creative work of the Hungarian artist Tamás Balla in this video, the imagination has no limits.

If the video does not display, watch it here.

While you watched, did you hear your parents saying, “Don’t play with your food”? Or, did you marvel at the the creative expression of an artist who works with food?

For me, in this tug of war, the artist won out, and my Oh, I see moment was clear—search for the artist within and carve away.