Carolinian

WTF is that?

Ben Holmes

Issue date: 10/24/06 Section: Life

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A human sized birdcage, paint-splattered toilet and glass bottle decorations are just a few things you'll find in Mary Foust's Junk Garden.

As you walk down the ramp beside Mary Foust, you may notice an odd assortment of items grouped together. A rusty, human-sized cage. A tree trunk adorned with a variety of colored glass bottles. A paint-smattered toilet seat filled halfway with tree foliage. What is this peculiar mélange of seemingly unrelated items? They all combine into Mary Foust's very own Junk Garden.

The Junk Garden is a collection of several years of eccentric planning and ideas by the Mary Foust's Garden Committee. This group of students is charged with the maintenance and progress of this unique area of UNCG's campus.

While the origin of most of the pieces is uncertain, being the products of random donations or just being left there, the cage has a well-known past. Two years ago it was used as a prop for the musical Bat Boy, which was held in Aycock Auditorium. After the final showing of the musical, the theater department was intending to discard the cage. A few dedicated Mary Foust students interceded, and they took possession of the item. That October the cage was utilized for the residence hall's annual Haunted House.

Ever since then, the cage has found its place among the interesting arrangement of the garden.

Another fact about the Junk Garden that many may find interesting is it is a wildlife habitat, a status it was granted a year ago according to Fran Arndt, director of the Residential College at Mary Foust. She explained that not too long ago, a class placed birdhouses in the tree located in the garden - some of which can still be spotted today - and some concerned professors managed to obtain protection for the site.

This location on campus, according to Arndt, is not just a unique art statement or an animal sanctuary but a symbol of the environment that surrounds it. "These grounds have absorbed the personality of the people" which have lived and now reside at Mary Foust, she said.

If you wish to visit the Junk Garden and contemplate its odd array, or just enjoy the peace of the area, take a stroll behind the Mary Foust building on College Avenue.