Just realized I hadn’t written a post about the one that started it all: the old push lawn mower and nails.

It was while I was listening to the Genesis song “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” that I thought of a carpet of nails like grass.

And when the lyrics “Keep them mowing blades sharp…” came on, I thought: Why not have a lawn mower cut a path through the nails?

Once I had the image in my head, I had to get it out.

So I went to Home Depot, bought boxes of nails and plywood, and hammered hundreds of nails.

The lawn mower piece is based on my experiences planting trees in Northern Ontario. Hammering nails is like planting trees. Pure repetition. It is also heavily influenced by the books I was reading at the time: ”Skinny Legs and All,” “In the Skin of a Lion,” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The photograph below with the yellow wall was taken in my bedroom at the time. I moved my bed out to make space, and set it up on several empty milk crates to get it off the ground.

The other photograph on the gray floor was taken by a professional art photographer at my studio at the Enriched Bread Artists space.

What’s also interesting about this piece is the rusted nails.

I used both galvanized and non-galvanized nails. The galvanized nails were longer and were meant to represent weeds and flowers, the taller things that grow in your lawn.

So, I was moving apartments in Ottawa, Canada and had the unfinished piece strapped to the top of my car. Well, it rained, and the non-galvanized nails rusted.

When the piece dried, I loved the look. Especially the orange, warm rust look contrasting with the clean, silver galvanized nails.

To cut the nails, I used boltcutters.

The sales person at the hardware store wanted to make sure I wasn’t using it to cut bicycle locks. I assured him that was not the plan, and told him the truth: that I was make a work of art and needed something to cut the nails. That did the trick and the boltcutters worked like a charm.

I also painted it once I was done hammering and cutting the nails. So what I did was use a turkey baster, and would squirt white paint in-between the nails. I also put the work on an angle to help the paint flow and cover more area. Took me a while, but it worked. It also made the paint go up the trunk of the nails a bit, which was a look I enjoyed.

The work debuted at the Enriched Bread Artists tour a number of years ago. It received positive attention and was well received at the show. I also made postcards of the image and handed them out for free. I like to think that the postcards still travel around the world and decorate many a fridge, held on by small magnets of cities.