"Memory Bomb" by Adam Walls is on the green space beside the Bristol Virginia Fire Department on Lee Street.
The votes are in. The winner of the People's Choice Award in Bristol's Art in Public Places 2009-2010 competition is "Memory Bomb" by Adam Walls, head of the sculpture program at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke.
Walls describes the piece as "very user-friendly and interactive. Housed inside the opening is a music box which plays a lullaby. This music box is from a teddy bear that was passed down to me from my brother when I was very young. It's been an outdoor piece for over a year now, and it still works. Just as the memory of a wonderful meal or a favorite garden can be stirred by a familiar scent, so can memory be stirred by a sound.
In this piece, a simple wind-up music box is used to bring up memories of childhood, yet the image of this time-worn, dangerous-looking sculpture warns us that there is a price to be paid for some unwanted memories."
After graduating in 1996 with a BFA in Art Education from Limestone College in Gaffney, S.C., Walls taught art privately and in the public school system. His love of escapist fantasy was apparent in his drawings and paintings for several years. After taking a ceramics course, he found that depicting his inspiration could also exist in three-dimensional forms. His love for construction and building sculptural forms led him to pursue his MFA in Sculpture from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. in 2005.
Since that time his work has been shown in sculpture parks, universities, and in exhibitions across the country.
