Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502130025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Enter Steve Bickley, a sculptor who shows in galleries around the country and an assistant art professor at Tech. Long interested in the most primitive elements, like fire and wind, Bickley had moved on to explore myths in his work. Most recently, he'd turned for inspiration to the early Algonquins, the first American Indians encountered by John Smith and other early European settlers.
The Algonquins built "effigy mounds," mysterious constructions, usually in the form of an animal. And Bickley thought he could build similar mounds from the landfill's packing crates.
"It was sort of reclaiming two things at once," Bickley said, describing how the ancient art could be recaptured, and the trash, recycled.
Larry Bechtel, who manages the landfill, had been hoping to find some way to beautify the place.
"We got to talking about using the wood for something constructive, and then [Bickley] brought me the book with the Indian mounds. And I liked it a lot," Bechtel said.
The pair pitched its case to the state Department of Environmental Quality and the agency agreed to let them build the mounds.
And then work began on the first - a turtle that stretches 185 feet long by 40 feet wide, but is only eight feet high. It's also only really visible from the air.
A diagram Bickley found shows his inspiration - a turtle mound at Waukesha, Wis. The 1836 drawing shows just one of as many as 10,000 effigy mounds found in Wisconsin.
"It was a real phenomenon that occurred that had some importance besides just a memorial," Bickley said. Whether the animal-shaped mounds had religious significance, nobody knows for sure. Early settlers plowed over many of the mounds - which are different from the more familiar Indian burial mounds. Sometimes, Bickley said, burial mounds are found near the animal mounds.
When the weather breaks, Bickley will complete the second mound, a flying man that is 400 feet across at his wingspan. His legs are 54 feet long. He'll only be about three or four feet high. Symbolically, Bickley believes the image "connects with man's desire to take flight and connect with the other world" - the spiritual realm.
Upwards of 25 of Bickley's students have pitched in at one time or another to help build the giant mounds. They take their cues from the century-old diagrams of the mounds that Bickley found through the Smithsonian Institution. They staked the figures on the ground, outlined them in lime, and ground up the pallets and tree limbs from last year's ice storms. The mulch is spread, then topped with soil. Planting grass completes the mound.
Bechtel's looking for somebody to help him find and plant trees around the mounds.
"Pie-in-the-sky, eventually the [landfill] would become a greenway. A natural preserve," Bickley said.
In fact, it's already headed in that direction. For some reason, deer flock to the mounds.
by CNB