Williamsville Bridge Reincarnate

Ever since demolition of the Williamsville covered bridge began, I had been wracking my brains to come up with what I could do in the way of a commemorative sculpture. Ever at the ready for scavenging and dumpster-diving, I kept my eyes peeled for materials from the old bridge that would be suitable for a piece. Day after day of blistering heat and humidity convinced me that the process would be idea first … scavenge second … and as such I had only picked up a few old pegs and some signage.

It finally came to me in the night. So why do ideas only reveal themselves at 3:00 AM under the cover of darkness? Who knows! The theme that I envisioned was reincarnation. In this case, the bridge would, in a sense, adopt a new persona with the debris from the demolition serving as the catalyst for the change in form … the new life of the bridge. The piece would necessarily require numerous links in order to conceptually tie the old bridge life to the new one. I chose the idea of a nest as the foundation for the piece. To me, the nest was representative of the familiarities of home just as the bridge had done for the Williamsville community in some respects. I constructed the nest from splintered bridge siding and old wire found on site. Incorporated into the nest were a couple of the old wooden pegs from the original structure, construction site barrier tape, and old signage. I likened the idea of the reincarnation of the bridge to that of rebirth, or better yet, “new” birth and used rocks gathered from a trip to New Brunswick, Canada and local stones to serve as “eggs” in the nest. It was important to me to include rocks in the piece given that the bridge spanned the Rock River. Also, inside the nest, I place a white parrot and a doll’s head. The parrot represented voices from the past life of the bridge (ghosts). The doll head spoke for the future life of the bridge in its new form. The final decision I needed to make was how to display the piece. I chose to make the pedestal part of the work. I used an old stepladder my neighbor brought me from P'town (also a bridge between two spaces) as the foundation for the entire piece.