A Guide To The Art Of Parks And Recreation

On the Parks and Recreation finale, the inimitable Leslie Knope book ended the series’ seven seasons with a graduation speech, encouraging all present to “find your team and get to work.” With those wizened words, she summed up the show in a single sentence, revealing at once the positivity, camaraderie and quirkiness that audiences have come to know and love.

Although it often took a backseat to the rest of the humor, art had an important role in Parks and Recreation. While the works themselves skewed towards intense and serious, from perpetually unhelpful Jerry Gergich’s seminude paintings and pointillist works, to City Hall’s incredibly inappropriate wall murals, they provided a stream of gags and in-jokes throughout the show’s six-year run. Essentially, it was a character in its own right—art, as a whole, brought history and context to Pawnee, and man, was it ridiculous.

To bid farewell to the best team of public servants on television—Leslie, Ron Swanson, Ben Wyatt, Tom Haverford, April Ludgate, Andy Dwyer, Ann Perkins, Donna Meagle, Jerry/Gerry Gergich, and even Lil’ Sebastian—we pored over every episode to find the most memorable paintings, sculptures, and artworks in Parks and Recreation… read more >