What started off as a few items sitting in the garage at the home of D.J. Carroll and Jacqui Terry-Carroll became a very public project when the couple decided to put their creative energy to use decorating the lawn of their Limera Avenue, Elmira home.
Having received a great deal of attention in the community from their first design based on Jurassic Park, the couple decided to enlist the help of their neighbours to create ‘Dragons be Here.’
“We’re both very, very creative people and we both love doing stuff in the community. And suddenly, when you’re in a social distancing, quarantine, it [becomes] hard to do stuff in the community,” said Carroll.
Before D.J. could finish explaining where the idea to transform his lawn came from, Jacqui interjected. “We have a front yard – and dinosaurs in our garage.”
That being the case, the empty yard and the dinosaurs lying dusty in the garage become an obvious pairing for some creative community spirit.
The result was “tons of families coming, one family at a time, six feet away from each other.” The property was even a stop on the recent Quarantine Quest, a journey through Elmira-based riddles that would lead to locations: “Where are the stern Lions? Where do people tie their horses up?” The popularity seemed to dwindle and D.J. and Jacqui decided it was time to change and rejuvenate the walk-by attraction.
“We had one of our neighbours … and she cried and cried and cried because she just loved coming to visit them every day,” said Jacqui.
With such a positive reaction and more time on their hands, the couple decided to change the display.
“Dragons, why not?” jokes Carroll. “For me, I was thinking ‘what would be cool to replace dinosaurs?’”
Dragons, he decided, would be a worthy replacement. The next decision was whether the dragons would be Oriental- or European-inspired. From there, the couple worked on some ideas to encourage people to linger a little rather than simply driving by.
An idea popped into Carroll’s head that he decided to call fire breath. “It’s basically a race and they have to outrun the teacher.” Being a drama teacher at EDSS, the idea came to him naturally.
Currently there are two dragons on display with two more waiting to be hatched – or painted, as it were. Jacqui paints the dragons and allows D.J. to come up with the ideas. The two dragons on display are Sushi and Eldermire. Sushi is the perfect spot for a photo op and even features hay bales to ensure social distancing is being met, where as Eldemire is the host of the “fire breath” game.
Adhering to the necessary self-isolation rules, next-door neighbour Leah Dunn and her two daughters Claira and Isla were more than happy to come out and help set up the display while maintaining prescribed practices.
“They invited us out, they asked if the girls and I would help with painting,” explained Leah, noting the girls even helped with setting up an interactive activity.
“[They] got to measure out the five-metre distance there,” said Leah, referring to the game next to Eldemire the dragon.
