With the razing of Holley's environment by the city of Birmingham came daily acts of theft and vandalism. Trash and garbage appeared around Holley's property, so that it resembled a poorly maintained landfill. Holley, undaunted, created sculptures out of all of it. A corner of the yard would be vacant one day; the next, piled with burned wood and other leftovers from someone's bonfire or junk heap; and on the third, covered with Holley's impromptu sculptures made from the debris. This postapocalyptic-looking sculpture garden had a short life. Holley would act and the bulldozers would react; the City would inevitably have the last word. Holley would create sculptures; the bulldozers would destroy them. Up they went; down they came. Holley described this process as "like a yo-yo."
"The root came out of a creek, the materials bound up in the root are debris thrown away by humans, reflecting waste. We are wasting our roots, we have to siphon the spirit now like gas from a car. We cannot go into the future without having access to our roots." —Lonnie Holley
