Flower Man
It is time for something ambitious to pay tribute to one of the city’s most creative artists
In the hospital, recovering from near death after years of alcoholism and homelessness, Cleveland Turner had a vision. He would turn a house into art. This vision didn’t just save his life, it transformed him into a superhero whose ability arose from the power to see art everywhere and give life to things others had thrown away.
He became Houston’s “Flower Man,” telling the Chronicle’s Molly Glentzer that he had dreamed of “colors coming from junk, flying high and about like a whirlwind and coming down pretty.”
That was in 1983, shortly after I was born. I met Mr. Turner in
2010, when he lived in Third Ward next to Project Row Houses, an organization that preserves several “shotgun” houses and other buildings, using them for art installations and creating a world-renowned social sculpture. Mr. Turner’s house was marked on the map given to visitors and so was the art studio across the street where I was in residency.
I saw him nearly every day until he passed away in 2013 at the age of 78. I was part of the “celebration” of remembrance that took place when his house, overrun by mold, was demolished in 2015. I understand the reasons why it had to be done, but I worry about what it means for Third Ward — and for all of Houston — that we couldn’t save the home, the life’s work and masterpiece, of one of the most creative people our city has ever known.
With the opening nearby of
Kindred Stories bookstore and Gulf Coast Cosmos Comics, and the renovation of the Eldorado Ballroom, now is the time to do something ambitious to pay tribute to the Flower Man. There were efforts to remember him: a day of remembrance, and a parade float, but I don’t think it’s too late to create a permanent tribute to him. First, though, we have to recall who he was and how he made his art.
Coming down pretty
I would often walk visitors who poked into my studio on what was then Dowling Street over to what was actually Flower Man’s second home that he moved to after his first burned down. His first, on a corner lot along Elgin Street, was an icon in its own right. In a “community of aging and graying shotgun houses,” it stood out, wrote Dr. Alvia Wardlaw, “like a huge parrot in a tree filled with sparrows.” Among the art objects, a garden of “cotton, papaya and avocado trees, caladium, hibiscus, snap-dragons, and marigolds” flourished. His next address was no less eye-catching. Painted yellow with green trim, it was a house unlike any you had ever seen. The onestory home was adorned with multicolored panels and items he picked out of Houston’s trash while riding his flowerbedecked bicycle, making a meandering trail of joy through the city as he smiled and waved at everyone. The knickknacks, plastic flowers and toys were baffling in their intricacy. Whatever he saw that looked interesting might go on the house, or inside, or get nailed to the fence, or to the side of the tree. It was a nonstop ephemera machine.
Flower Man was happy to share his life’s work and gave off an energy that filled others with wonder. He would invite groups into his backyard and even inside his house.
I referred to Mr. Turner and other eccentric residents in the neighborhood as the Third Ward Avengers. Caped superheroes fighting some battle that they didn’t divulge to the common citizens. There was Mr. Brown, a time traveler from the early 1900s, an imagined persona I based solely on his wardrobe. No matter the temperature, he was in a full threepiece suit with trench coat.
Billy was a classically trained opera singer and could be heard from all around Third Ward on a quiet day. There were, and still are, so many unique personalities but Mr. Turner balanced his creativity with a genuine spirit that was all his own.
Mr. Turner’s superhero mission was without a doubt his home and his work on it was prolific — a testament to a level of insight that comes from time, peace and home ownership. Third Ward became the place it did because Black people made it theirs in so many ways. For Mr, Turner, that meant transforming his corner of the world into another world entirely.
One Saturday, I stowed away on a Contemporary Arts Museum Houston bus tour with a friend. The tour was a part of the “No Zoning” exhibition that was curated by Toby Kamps. The show covered the relationship, or lack thereof, that Houston has with zoning, and Mr. Turner was invited to put an outdoor installation in the museum garden. The tour would travel to Mr. Turner’s home in Third Ward and a home in the Heights used by Houston artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck for an installation at the exhibition. There was
Mr. Turner telling his life story to museum members as the bus headed from the Museum District to his home for a private tour. He loved telling his tale of near death to becoming a focused artist, but having a captive audience from a museum was the first time I saw him treated with the admiration bestowed on professional artists.
For a time, he was the constant of the neighborhood. No matter how your day had gone Mr. Turner was guaranteed to smile and wave and disappear into his art castle.
Remember the ephemeral
Houston is home to a few such residences that have become art landmarks. Near Memorial Park is the “Beer Can House.” Not far from the University of Houston is “The Orange Show.” Both of those landmarks were preserved — a heroic effort of volunteers reclad the Beer Can House with a new skin of metal tabs and the Orange Show continues to grow into a major campus — but shortly after Mr. Turner died in 2013 his home was ransacked for anything of value and all that remained were all the creative elements he had put into it. Health inspectors soon found that mold had reached a dangerous level and scheduled the Flower Man house for demolition.
I gathered up some art colleagues and we scavenged as many of the remaining art items that we could and brought them back to the studio. I proposed a Thanksgiving Day float in honor of Flower Man with items from his home adorning the float. Each item was given one last procession before it would vanish to wherever the city puts old parade floats. A few months later on Feb. 7, 2015, Mr. Turner’s home was razed, leaving only a bike placed on the tree nearest the sidewalk.
Sometimes, the sight of the lot empty and devoid of color makes my memories of Flower Man and his house seem like a dream. How could a home that eccentric, that wonderful, vanish? There is an energy about Third Ward, it ebbs and flows, for many reasons. The energy could be the Ocean of Soul practicing, or Deloyd Parker in his white dashiki. The energy is important and that energy has not been the same since the Flower Man House ceased to exist.
People are remembered in so many ways. We name streets after them. We create bronze statues.
I have a proposal to bring some semblance of Mr. Turner and his zest for creativity back to where his home once stood. “The Flower Tower,” designed in collaboration with artist Patrick Renner, is an 18-foottall sculpture of bikes and flower baskets with a fence surrounding the sculpture that will be reminiscent of Mr. Turner’s art aesthetic. Visitors will be able to adorn part of the fence with posters or objects, creating an ephemeral homage, changing over and over the way his home did. Joining the tower will be a fully landscaped lot featuring native and drought-tolerant plants. It will be a place to sit and dream, and provide access from the back of the lot to Kindred Stories and Gulf Coast Cosmos Comics.
The Flower Tower will be a beacon to the creative spirit Mr. Turner shared with the community and hopefully a way to celebrate his impact on Third Ward, and Houston. You can find more information on my website. Whether the tower is ever built or not, at the very least, I want to start a conversation.
Behind the superhero
Spotting Mr. Turner at random times was a daily occurrence for me, but what was he really like? When he stopped to speak we would have our customary dialogue. His memory faltered in his later years and I would re-introduce myself as Phillip.
He would, without fail, reply, “I have a brother named Phillip, but that’s his middle name, his first name is Alan.” Then I would do my bit: nodding and replying, “My middle name is Alan.” This would send Mr. Turner into a world of disbelief. We must have had this exact exchange dozens of times.
I never had the opportunity to get into a deep exchange with him about the meaning of his art or even break through his superhero self to have an ordinary conversation.
I also couldn’t see what was going on inside his compound because the fence was so high. That made him all the more magical, or mystical. He would appear and disappear. What was Flower Man eating? Did he eat? I never saw him carrying groceries, just plastic flowers or some other artifact for his installation. I should have tried to buy him a coffee. I never thought about taking him out of the element. “A Houston Rockets game is on, do you want to watch it?”
There was one time that I saw a flash of the man behind the superhero.
One afternoon in Third Ward, sitting outside of my studio, I watched as a pickup truck parked in front of Mr. Turner’s home across the street. A couple minutes afterwards a gentleman approached the driver-side door. There was an exchange of some sort. Before the truck driver and his trade partner could end their deal peacefully, however, the door to Mr. Turner’s home flew open and out he ran yelling, “Get that away from my house” in his high-pitched Southern accent. The truck sped away and Mr. Turner, pleased with himself, paused to observe his home. Mr. Turner adjusted some boards, picked up some trash and turned to wave at me. I waved back and he vanished back inside his own personal wonderland.