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Lawn Mower Leaves — UMF Leaf Sculpture
Lawn Mower Leaves: Cutting Tools Become Growing Forms
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Lawn Mower Leaves enlarges an ordinary patch of grass into an unexpected Farmington landmark. Christopher Fennell's outdoor sculpture rises in front of the University of Maine at Farmington's Education Center, using discarded mower blades to make three arching, leaf-like forms. From a distance the work reads as growth. A closer look reveals the manufactured pieces that once performed the opposite job: cutting vegetation down. That reversal gives this campus artwork a particularly clear idea to explore.
The artist identifies the work as a 2009 installation made from six hundred used blades, cleaned and welded together. His current project page places it at the Education Center, while contemporary reporting locates the setting along High Street near Lincoln Street. Arrive using lawful campus visitor arrangements and approach through pedestrian space. The outdoor work can be viewed without entering teaching rooms or treating the adjoining building as an unrestricted visitor attraction.
Begin by comparing the overall sweep with the repeated components. The large forms suggest plants, but the smaller units retain another identity. The title makes that transformation easier to notice. It is possible to enjoy the graceful outline first and only afterward ask what it is made from. Neither response has to replace the other: the sculpture offers both a visual shape and a material story.
Fennell's own explanation of his practice connects engineering with art. He works with discarded or devalued materials, forming them into structures that invite viewers to reconsider familiar objects. He describes the choice of material as part of the message, rather than simply a convenient substitute for new metal. Read Lawn Mower Leaves through that idea. A recognizable tool component becomes a building block for a form associated with living growth, making reuse visible instead of hiding it.
Bobbie Hanstein's original report from the November 2009 unveiling records a community contribution to the making. People watching the work brought additional used mower blades, and others offered soup and gloves while the artist worked through cold, wet weather. The account places a human history beside the finished object. What now looks like a single completed sculpture developed through a period of outdoor construction and conversations with people passing the campus corner.
The same report explains its commission through Maine's Percent for Art program in connection with campus building work. The educational setting adds to the sculpture's meaning: an object outside a place of learning can prompt questions about materials, waste and the way an idea becomes a physical structure. These are questions to consider while looking, without turning the artwork into an engineering demonstration or assuming that its curves are intended for climbing.
For photographs, try a view that shows the three forms together and retains enough surrounding space to convey their height. Follow with one close detail from a safe permitted position to reveal the repeated metal elements. Leave the work untouched and give campus pedestrians room to pass. Credit Christopher Fennell when sharing. Lawn Mower Leaves offers a concise encounter with transformation: an everyday tool, a familiar natural shape and a change of scale that makes both newly interesting.
Fun facts
- Christopher Fennell created Lawn Mower Leaves in 2009.
- The finished work uses six hundred reclaimed mower blades.
- Three arching leaf-like forms grow from repeated metal components.
Before you go
- Follow current campus visitor and parking directions.
- View from permitted pedestrian space outside the Education Center.
- Compare the full outline with its repeated components.
- Leave the sculpture untouched and do not climb.
Capture
- Use a wider frame to reveal the group of three forms.
- Choose a safe close detail of the repeated metal components.
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Social
Lawn Mower Leaves turns discarded cutting tools into an image of growth.
Christopher Fennell created the outdoor Farmington sculpture in 2009.
Six hundred used mower blades form the completed work.
From a distance, begin with the curves; closer up, look for the components.
Fennell’s practice connects engineering knowledge with artistic transformation.
Contemporary reporting records local contributions while the work was being built.
Keep campus pedestrian access clear and leave the artwork untouched.
What familiar discarded material would you look at differently after this visit?
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