Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky will burst into bloom this summer in a public art project organizers hope will rival the Big Pig Gig in scope and popularity.

        Flower Power, running May 19 through late summer, will feature at least 200 huge flowerpots decorated by Cincinnati artists and planted by professional gardeners. The project will be overseen by the Cincinnati Horticultural Society and ArtWorks, the organization that produced the Big Pig Gig in 2000.

        As with Big Pig, individuals and corporations will pay $2,000 to $10,000 to sponsor a flowerpot — the higher the price, the more visible the placement.

        “What we learned in the Big Pig Gig was that in Cincinnati, you need to spread the art all over downtown,” said Betsy Neyer, marketing consultant on the project. In Kentucky, she added, the pots will be clustered at Newport on the Levee, MainStrasse and Covington's Convention Center and hotel strip.

        Artists will have three shapes of fiberglass pot to chose from: a 40-inch urn with 26-inch circumference; a 40-inch fluted vase with 36-inch circumference; and a large, square flower box.

        The prototype unveiled Monday is titled “All that Glitters is not Goldenrod” by Terrace Park artist Debra Burgess. Other proposed names include “You Lilac a Persian Rug,” “Nat King Coleus,” “Peony Wise, Pound Foolish.”

        No decision was announced yet on whether the pots will be auctioned off as the pigs were.

        Flower Power is one component of Cincinnati Blooms, a new project of the horticultural society. Other pieces include maintaining Miracle Mile, a mile (literally) of flower boxes in Over-the-Rhine; and Colors of Earth, which will have 1,000 third graders planting flowers in Over-the-Rhine's Washington Park.
        The Cincinnati Enquirer/CRAIG RUTTLE Debra Burgess shows her decorated flowerpot, a prototype for the Flower Power project that will feature at least 200 pots adorned by local artists.

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