Making Process of Sensory Mural at the Sensory Garden of the Tallinn House of Disabled People

A month ago I was asked if I could make a big weather resistant mural/sensory wall which should be ready within less than four weeks.

I guess I’m the one *crazy” enough artist who accepts these kind of flash projects, so of course I jumped right on board 

The Sensory Garden was created within Tallinn as the European Green Capital in 2023. The opening day was set o 28th June and the media had already been announced.

… so I started to scetch and wonder how I´m going to make this 

Since it was a part of this garden, I had a vision to depict also flowers, and a woman smelling them – “Stop, and smell the flowers” – be in the now  But there’s also another nuance to the flowers, at some point I felt that they should all be herbs, with healing properties, even if most people don’t know it about them… But what flower should be the big one in the middle? At first I saw a peony, but since I wanted it to be edible and with healing properties, I also considered a rose, though it seemed like a cliché..
And then I learnt that peony is also edible and has herbal benefits – I didn’t know that! And another syncronicity – beautiful pink peonies were just at the same time blooming right next to the wall where the painting was going to be…

I had a birthday at 11th and by that time I had a scetch and an idea to have the flowers and other figures cut out with CNC machine. Only this service had a weeks or even months long waiting time everywhere. The one person close to me at that time who does this at his day job hadn’t understand what I was asking him and when I was trying to be more concrete, he declined, but the time had ran out by then even more 

So I searched even more and finally found this company 3D Koda who was so pleasant and easy to cooperate with and they cut the figures out in a few days, 1,8m elk hemp and everything…

At the same time I had found two assistants to help me – Margot Laur and Toomas Jürisoo – and we had started with painting and installing the wires and other texture giving materials. It was fun and so interesting to figure out what they should be – stimulating to touch and pleasant to see, giving enjoyable experiences to the different senses!

The process was pretty intense (+ I had a breakup the same time) but also fun and inspiring. And though due to the close deadline, responsibility and vision-keeping role, I had hard time sleeping at nights and it seemed like a big challenge for my health, I knew I had to keep it all together.

For the last days also Madis Maastik and Janika joined our team and together things moved even more quicker. And also life had decided to make even crazier things happen, but we still managed