The Wall

©2013 Fiona Dempster - The Wall - unfinished - Hipstamatic app on iPhone

The Wall has had to pause - because we have run out of books.  As you can see from the photos below I'm about 75% done - I have yet to finish the tail end.

©2013 Fiona Dempster - Curve in the unfinished Wall

©2013 Barry Smith - Zigzag section of The Wall

©2013 Barry Smith - The Wall - paused

But today I also started the process of adding other purposes or roles to The Wall. Over time I'm going to put orchids and moss etc into crevices. Today I planted a couple of Australian native orchids - quite hardy and produce small purple flowers. I used some of Fiona's left over paper pulp to act as the base for the orchids - the pulp was beginning to go off.

©2013 Barry Smith - Orchids in The Wall

©2013 Barry Smith - Orchids in The Wall -  with Fiona's paper pulp

I also placed the first two peace messages into The Wall. I hope in the future that people who visit the studio-gallery or the block might want to add to this by writing their own peace messages and place them in grooves or crevices between the book covers or pages. The idea for this came to me from two merging sources: Fiona's weather-grams for the Flags for Peace; and a book titled The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002). One of the characters in the book would place messages in a stone wall as a way of dealing with difficulties and anxiety. I thought that paper based messages in The Wall is such a small positive thing to do for peace.

©2013 Fiona Dempster - Peace messages in The Wall

The Wall will be completed in the next little while when I access more books to recycle-repurpose. And the process of change and growth for The Wall will be ongoing - it will weather as the books have no treatment or protection; it will grow orchids; it will receive messages; and it will be a living part of the landscape - it will be a piece of ephemeral art in the landscape.

And what music to listen to whilst building a book wall ACDC and Pink Floyd (The Wall) of course.

©2013 Fiona Dempster - Paper Camera photo of the paused wall

And so the wall begins

In my previous post I indicated that over the weekend I started putting books into the book wall. As you can see from the photos below I had accumulated stacks and stacks of books.

©2013 Barry Smith - A stack of red hard covered books that will be the top level

The way the wall is being made is: threaded rods are cemented into the ground; anti white ant and other eating critter oil is applied to the soil; a layer of magazines are put down to create a reasonably even surface; the books are stacked to within 5-10cm of the top of the rod; a 5cm thick by 20cm wide board is placed on top of the books; a large rusted plate and washer go over the rod; a bolt is screwed on to compress the whole stack; and gravel covers the bottom layer.

The long layer of National Geographic magazines - dating from 1964 to the present - donated by elderly neighbours having a bit of a clean out.

©2013 Fiona Dempster - 40 years of National Geographic - a fitting foundation

Some books need to be drilled to fit over the threaded rods - unique drilling approach below.

©2013 Fiona Dempster - A big book borer?

And the 10-11ms of wall begin to grow.

©2013 Fiona Dempster  - The beginning point 

©2013 Fiona Dempster  - The stacking begins - bit like a dry stone wall

©2013 Fiona Dempster  - The end point

©2013 Fiona Dempster  - Quite a long wall really

In my next post I will show how the finished product will look; and how I think it could be used.