These life-sized plywood cutouts of famous pop culture icons and characters from various animated shows were the works of Mike Bennett whose inspiration came from a thought about Calvin and Hobbes making a big snowman. From there, his project took off.
He headed to Home Depot, came back with a jigsaw, and went to town on wood from a nearby ReBuilding Center. Bennett, who was once active on the short-video app Vine, where he recreated scenes from movies and TV with little paper dolls, began to fill the yard with pop-culture characters.
He wasn't satisfied with filling his own front yard with these figures. So he decided to put his installation art around town without destroying any property or trespassing, of course.
“I’m a pretty big baby when it comes to trespassing,” he says, and he’s also careful to avoid damaging property or plants. He’ll sometimes fasten his wooden characters to light posts, trees, or telephone poles with a few hooks and twine. His information is printed on the back of the figures, so if someone gets in touch to say that they want one to come down, he can swing by and grab it.
So far, he hasn't received any complaints from people. He has more plans to put up other characters in different places around Portland.
(Image credit: Mike Bennett)
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Were it not for the bike pile and "Rose Festival Queens Walk", I'd have wondered if this was Portland Maine instead of Portland Oregon.
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