In the context of Plastic flamingo, explain the Union Products of the History.
The American artist Don Featherstone designed the pink lawn flamingo in 1957, naming the first Diego. His lawn flamingo, mass-produced by his employer, Union Products, of Leominster, Massachusetts, has since become an icon of pop culture that won him the Ig Nobel Prize for Art in 1996. It has even spawned a spoof lawn greeting industry that installs flocks of pink flamingos on a victim's lawn in the dark of night. After the release of John Waters's 1972 movie Pink Flamingos, plastic flamingos came to be the stereotypical example of lawn kitsch.Many imitation products have found their way onto front lawns and store shelves since then. Genuine pink flamingos made by Union Products from 1987 (the 30th anniversary of the plastic flamingo) until 2001 can be identified by the signature of Don Featherstone on the rear underside. These official flamingos were sold in pairs, one standing upright and the other with its head low to the ground, "feeding". Sometime after Featherstone's retirement in 2000, Union Products began producing birds without the signature. In December 2001, the Annals of Improbable Research (bestowers of the Ig Nobel prize) teamed up with the Museum of Bad Art to protest this omission in the form of a boycott. Union Products stopped production of pink flamingos on November 1, 2006.
Leominster, Massachusetts lawn greeting mass-produced kitsch Flamingo front lawn John Waters flamingo Museum of Bad Art Ig Nobel Prize Pink Flamingos pop culture Don Featherstone