By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Remember Jenny Joseph's famous poem "When I am Old I will wear Purple"?   It starts:

"When I am an old woman,
I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go,
and doesn't suit me. . . ."

And it continues with all the outrageous things the poet is waiting to do when she gets a certain age.

Well, Dee Marcellus Cole, an Upland, California paper mache artist, makes the purple-hatted woman in that poem look like a piker.  She does a lot more outrageous things than wear purple.  But judge for yourself.  Following are a few photos of her garden.

"There will be no mistaking my home," said Cole when giving me directions.  "It's the one with the mannequins on the roof."  And, as you can see, she wasn't kidding.

Here is a closer view of my two favorites.

Past that wonderfully distinctive gate--scan back up and take a closer look at it--things get even more interesting.  Paprika red walls, a collection of chia pets lined up along the top of one of them, slightly sinister masks made from palm sheaths hanging from trees. 

And another mannequin hovering over a periwinkle blue cocktail table like a fiery angel.

More of Cole's painted mannequins in the backyard.  Other artists' work, too.  Like this larger-than-life Day of the Dead skeleton.  (That's Dee posing next to it.)  A reminder, it occurred to me, that if you want to live a life more like the purple-hatted woman in Joseph's poem, or even better like Ms. Cole, there's no time to lose.

Dee describes herself as a faux folk artist.  To see more of her work check out her website.  Or go to the Armstrong's Gallery website.  Or even better visit the Armstrong Gallery in the Art Colony in Pomona.