(image: the 22 wood artists behind their Story Wall creation)
How is this for a sustainable landscaping concept?
This summer, twenty-two wood carving artists, including carvers, turners, furniture makers and sculptors, worked together for one week to create a 'Story Wall' for the Carlow Arts Festival.
The result was a concept Story Wall built to resemble one of the many Irish dry stone walls, which had inspired Australian wood artist and writer, Terry Martin, after one of many of his visits to Ireland.
The wall is 6.5m long and made of individual wooden stones. Each stone has been cut with a chainsaw and a bandsaw then carved to create a round finish using wood carving tools before being sanded and sandblasted.
Many of the artists then carved on the surface so that some stones resembled ancient rock art or to suggest realistic vegetation.
Built into the wall is a little door carved by one of the artists which you can be opened. Behind the door is a treasure - a traditional Chinese coin carved which has a Celtic horse and an Asian dragon on it.
The Story Wall will is on display at the Visual Centre for Contemporary Art in Carlow until 7 September after which it is hoped the wall will tour other galleries across Ireland.
Most of the funding for the project came from the Carlow Arts Festival. Other support came from the Crafts Council of Ireland, the International Wood Culture Society, Arbortech, Axminster Tool Centre, Flexcut, Golden Paints and some local outlets such as the Carpentry Store (Co Kildare) and Ronaynes (Co Tipperary).
The wood came from the grounds of the Office of Public Works in Ireland, an organisation similar to the National Trust. All the artists gave their time freely.
Image courtesy of Axminster Tools.
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