Ramona Bush

Ramona Bush (1950-2022) was a retail display designer and fabricator, musician, and one of the founders of Bump Island.

## Early Life

### The Poppy Seeds

Bush was raised in Fremont, New Hampshire along with her sisters Sol and Amanda. The girls were forbidden by their religious father, Todd Bush Jr., from dating and spending time with friends. In 1960, Todd's palm was read by a charismatic preacher, who informed him that his house would be flooded and his daughters would form a famous band. When the first of these predictions came true, he set about trying to fulfill the second by forcing his daughters to form a band. The girls had no interest in music.

The band, known as The Poppy Seeds, wrote songs with erratic time signatures, untuned guitars, and disconnected drum parts. Ramona Bush was the drummer and wrote some of the lyrics, with Sol as guitarist and vocalist and Amanda playing the bass. In 1965, they recorded the EP *One Million Hugs*. Only 500 copies were made, and fewer than 300 were sold.

#### Cult Following

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, collectors rediscovered The Poppy Seeds and deemed *One Million Hugs* a work of unintentional genius. The group reunitied in 1994 to perform with folk musician Daniel Johnston in Binghamton, New York.

### Commerical Design and Fabrication

Bush left home and permanently cut ties with her father at age 17. She took a job at a furniture store at a mall in Rhode Island. Bush accompanied her manager to a meeting on a new potential frachise location with Victor Gruen, who was designing what would become the Midlands Mall. Fascinated by her conversation with Gruen, Bush sketched ideas for the new store, which impressed the owner. Bush's space age inspired designs were installed into the new store, and launched her career as a retail display designer.

#### Postmodern ruins

Around 1980, Bush developed a distinct style for her retail spaces that would later be known as PoMo Ruins. Highly influential, her work inspired copycats in industrial design throughout the decade.

Her expertise in fake ruins led her to expand her work to include amusement parks and set design.

#### Politics

Bush's encounter with Victor Gruen shaped her view of the function of retail spaces. Gruen, a Jewish-Austrian socialist, believed that his work developing the modern American mall was a way to create pedestrianized common spaces that woud be a refuge from automobile-dominant suburban sprawl. Many critics, and later Gruen himself, say that his project backfired, as it led to greater commercialization, alienation, increased the size of parking lots in the country.

Bush's beliefs evolved similarly to Gruen's. She believed her work as a retail designer and fabricator was to the benefit of the wider populace, as commerical spaces—completely ubiquitous and impactful on the average person's state of mind—ought to be thoughtfully-designed. By the early 1980s, Bush rejected this view.

## Bump Island

Bush's work as a designer and fabricator brought her to Bump Island. The Bump Islanders had been working towards making the site habitable since the abandonment of McIntire's project in 1973, but were stuggling because of how almost every element of the construction besides the bumper car infrastructure was simulacra or fascade. Bush, who worked with these elements for a living, was brought in to aid the project.

Bush aided in the renovation of the Food Court Civic Center, the Tower of Babel, and the Garden of Eden Hotel. In the process of doing so, she became close to Curtis Lee Carmichael and Roscoe Borges, and the conversations between the three of them led to the development of the concept of Bump Island autonomy.