Using Broken CDs to Create a Reflective Garden Mural
by Laura Bernardeschi Nelson
For two years, an old ivy had been quietly taking over the red brick wall of my garage. At first, I liked the wild, slightly unruly feeling it gave the garden. But this spring, something changed.
The leaves looked tired. Dusty. And strangely familiar.
Over the past few years, I’ve been navigating anxiety and panic attacks—some days better, others not. I didn’t move through it by stopping but by doing: slowly, persistently, and not always gracefully. At some point, I realised that waiting to “feel better” wasn’t working.
So I started changing things I could actually touch.
This wall became one of them.
What began as a necessary clean-up turned into something else entirely: a mural built with gold paint and broken CDs, designed to catch light and shift throughout the day. I didn’t plan it as a symbolic act, but it became one.
The ivy was old—thick, tangled, and layered with years of dust. Cutting it back took two full days. There were spiders, sneezing fits, and moments where I seriously questioned my commitment to personal growth.
But eventually, the wall appeared.
Bare. Red. Unexpectedly calm.
The ivy survived—healthier and lighter. And the wall, now exposed, felt like a space waiting to be redefined.
At first, I considered something simple: colourful frames, an easy decorative fix. But the weather here would have destroyed them quickly. I needed something more resilient.
So I chose gold.
With no sketch and no strict plan, I started spraying. The form emerged naturally—a tree with flowing branches and organic movement. I had painted similar shapes before, but never at this scale.
Two weeks earlier, I had built a chicken coop entirely on my own. Five hours of manual work, a screwdriver, a pile of parts, and a level of patience I didn’t know I had.
At moments, it felt unnecessarily complicated. Instructions that made less sense the longer I looked at them, screws that refused to cooperate, and pieces that only aligned after I stopped trying to force them.
But eventually, it stood.
Not perfect, but solid. Functional. Mine.
That small structure did more than house chickens—it shifted something in me. It proved that I could stay with a problem long enough to solve it.
So when I stood in front of the empty wall, I didn’t see a limit.
I saw a project.
That experience changed something.
This wall no longer felt intimidating.
So I kept going.
The gold tree looked strong—but incomplete. It needed light, not just colour.
That’s when I turned to an unexpected material: old CDs.
I had around fifty of them. I softened them in boiling water, cut them into irregular shapes, and let them dry. Then, using a strong outdoor adhesive, I began placing them onto the wall—piece by piece.
Some remained whole. Others became fragments.
There was no rigid pattern. I followed balance, rhythm, and instinct—building the trunk, extending the branches, and adding circular details that catch and scatter light.
It was slow work. Repetitive, but grounding.
I stopped only when I ran out of CDs—and when my arms decided they had done enough for one day.
At night, the mural changes completely.
Solar lights from a nearby tree hit the surface, and the CDs reflect the light in shifting patterns. The wall no longer feels static—it moves, subtly, almost like it’s breathing.
And somewhere in that process, something else shifted too.
My internal voice came back.
Not the anxious one, not the one that spirals, but a quieter, more focused version. The one that plans, creates, and follows through.
Thanks for reading.