Yesterday, June 22nd, 2015, Donald Featherstone, the creator of the plastic pink flamingo died at the age of 79.
Donald studied art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts and created the pink plastic flamingo in 1957 for the plastics company Union Products Inc. soon after completed art school. He worked for Union Products for 43 years {eventually becoming president} and made over 600 items for the company before retiring in 1999.
Did you know the original flamingo was modeled after a National Geographic photograph and sculpted out of clay? How amazing it must have been to know you created something LOVED by so many people.
Thank you Donald Featherstone.
Long live the pink plastic flamingo!!
~Mavis
A big thank you to everyone who sent in flamingos for the Flamingo Sanctuary we started earlier this spring. I will cherish them always.
*Thank you Sue, Jill, Michelle, Heidi, and Mia for letting us know.
Deborah says
God bless his soul. He certainly brought a lot of smiles (and some smirks) to a lot of faces. A legacy of smiles is a nice one.
Thank you for sharing this.
Tamara says
I agree!
Sue says
I smile everytime I see a little pink head peeping out among the green. Just love being a small part of the flamingo team!
Susannah says
Ha…I was just coming on here to tell you about Don Featherstone, and here you’ve already posted a tribute to him! By the way, have you read the book “Flight Maps” by Jennifer Price? It’s about Americans’ (artificial) relationship with nature over the past century or so. It can be rather dry in places (and absolutely fascinating in others), but the reason I ask is that there is an entire chapter dedicated to the whole plastic flamingo phenomenon. That, and it has a flamingo on the cover, too!
Helen in Meridian says
I loved the PLASTIC LIVESTOCK printed on the box you received. You can do a tribute to Mr. Featherstone at your giant pig out celebration, to end the 30 day study. Please make a drs. appt. to have lab work done on the last day of your study. This will be beneficial to you, and to everyone. You may find out that you are more healthy than when you a regular diet, no that you ever overeat like the rest of us do.