We realized that we couldn’t use the wall for a mural as we had initially planned. So we had to come up with a new plan. The initial thought was to build some kind of a wall. I have worked for many years in the film industry, so the idea of a fake wall would really feel phoney. I also was worried about what material we would use, painting on wood in this wet climate is never a good idea, if you want it to last for a while. What happens is that the wood inevitably absorbs moisture just like a sponge and then the paint starts to peel off as the wood expands.
Out of the blue I had an idea to use the sails from my sailboat which had been sadly dismasted by a 55ft powerboat earlier in the summer. The mast lay in two pieces and was destined for the dump until I convinced that the mast could live on as an art installation and the sails would become the substrate for a mural!
Although this was a great solution, it created a slew of other structural challenges we had to solve first. Luckily we had a number of very skilled and enthusiastic volunteers who were able to help me engine the structure needed to tension and raise the sails. Over several days we dug the holes for sauna tubes, mixed cement and built a foundation for 3 wooden posts that would be connected by wire and then tensioned with turnbuckles.
