Make and install public art - PEP BB community.sand.art

Hi Permies!

Today I made a garden bed/ art installation / bee haven in front of my house. It is accessible from the road, easily visible from the road as you drive by, and technically not on my property (under the power lines). My neighbour came over just to see what I was up too! She loved it!

Two BBs in one!

I used:

- Upcycled Marble - They are slabs left over from cutting counter tops
- Bark - For mulching the perimeter
- An old antique bike with planters attached
- An old antique mop bucket I turned into a flower pot
- Old composted & manure/straw/hay/wood shavings
- Seeds! (Xeriscape blend, sage, valerian, peppermint, chives, lemon balm, borage, yarrow, echinacea, calendula, lupins)

The beginning:





I used a pulaski to trench out the area the marble was to go and where the bike was placed. It took a lot of effort to move all the marble to the front of the house and set it in place. I then raked out the bed area.



The upright marble is in place:



Harvesting the compost & mulch:



Marble mulch? Looks neat anyway! Or really slippery stepping stones! I used a rake to mix in the new mulch and compost a bit. There is very little soil in this area but it's well drained.



The seeds I planted:





Making the mop-bucket planter:





Time to seed!



Voila! Functional and fashionable!

Public Art bb submission:

Wood sign was assembled from off-cuts of the PTJ solar dehydrator project with reused finishing nails. Sign was wood burned and coated with linseed oil. The quote and Phoenix image was inspired by Ash’s Bench (the originally intended spot). It seemed to fit the moment with all of the wild fires going on in MT, and the many deep conversations I have been having with all the awesome folks here at Wheaton Labs.

After discussing with some of the members of the community, we decided it might be better to place it in the loft space in the classroom… I think it fits well here, and hopefully, it will inspire folks to keep adding to the coziness of the “couch loft.”

I did something I've never tried before -- carved a garden gnome.  

The gnome was "imprisoned" inside of a neighbor's discarded Christmas tree, and I "set it free" with hatchet and saw and pyrography pen.  Its permanent location is in a community keyhole garden area that I previously branded; but I have a feeling that "Stumpy" is going to venture out into the neighborhood and become a travelling gnome any week now.