Yesterday was beautiful and HOT! With the Tour Dem Parks. Even amongst the trees, it was unbearable weather! For those that rode in the tour or came out to participate with Baltimore: The Urban Forest Project, THANK YOU!

During this event, Fastspot created a 156 ft long banner showcasing roughly 1500 leaves created by artists, community people and designers all over the globe. We pulled out 8 defined leaves that tell a story about the personalities and culture of greening. It was a spectacular installation because it really incorporated so many different people from so many walks of life.

Thank you to Fastspot for designing, developing and creating this wonderful masterpiece!

Here is the story of how it came to be:
In this iteration of the Project, Fastspot asked for the help of the community to make their banners. In order to foster community involvement, Fastspot created a Website where users were asked to contribute a portion of the banner by using online drawing tools to create a customized leaf. Through online submission, these leaves became part of larger banners designed by Fastspot and hung on the street lights all over the city.

View and interact with the program here: www.fastspot.com/client/urban_forest

As part of their involvement in the project, Fastspot was asked to contribute to the event in Carroll Park on June 8, 2008. Fastspot felt that the event reinforced the Project?’s message of sustainability and green-consciousness, while engaging the citizens who made their banners possible and showcasing the artwork itself. The event gave citizen leaf designers the opportunity to find their leaf amongst the over 1,500 individual submissions that made our project possible. These leaves were displayed on banners and markers throughout Carroll Park that invited attendees to “Find Your Leaf”, reinforcing the strong community involvement necessary in keeping our city clean and green.

The Fastspot banners are now available for sale as wall art or as bags at the closing exhibition. If you would like to purchase beforehand, feel free to contact us directly to buy: ufp@tiltstudioinc.com.

All photos were taken by Fastspot’s Stacy Spakowsky

And it has started… the Gensler installation has taken over Patterson. Literally taking the meaning of tree canopy to a new level, Gensler has created an installation that has furthered the mission of Baltimore: Urban Forest Project. They have brung together 3 unique elements: Burlap (symbolizing the tree canopy), Stakes (symbolizing the shaft of a tree) and sod (symbolizing the root of a tree). The entire park has been transformed into a living, breathing exhibition. Rooted in the center of the park where the Saturday event will take place, there are “points” from each corner of the park that draw the community into the event space below the boat basin lake.

Thank you to the amazing volunteers who have been integral in the success of this installation.

The installation has already started taking shape, so feel free to go out and take a look. Make sure you come out this weekend and play! 12-4pm on Saturday, May 10th!

Check out the photos below for a sneak peak at the installation in progress!

Hi all you greener cleaner city lovers! Denise here to tell you we had our fundraising party for TreeBaltimore at AVAM Wednesday night (April 2nd) and it was amazing! We heard from these great speakers:

Tom Stosur, Assistant Deputy Mayor of Baltimore, who was impressed with the Urban Forest Project’s collaborative success and it’s relevance to the Mayor’s new Sustainability commission’s efforts
Mark Randall, the founder of the original Urban Forest Project in NYC shared his excitement at how we took his seed of an idea and grew it into a tree via our community stewardship approach
Myra Brosius the coordinator of Tree Baltimore (beneficiary of the Urban Forest Project) talked about our success raising awareness for their campaign
Maryland State Delegate Jon Cardin spoke about the value of our initiative and its relationship to Baltimore and Maryland leading the nation as a green state

A HUGE thank-you for the generosity of our sponsors whose donations made the evening wildly successful! Please click here to the “Plant Our City Green” party page to see all these amazing businesses and let them know how much you appreciate their support of this great initiative.

A great shot of the crowd and the digital banner display:

Click here to check out the photos of the event, taken by Emily Ellickson-Brown!

NEXT is “GROW” on April 12th!!! The Opening Exhibition for Baltimore: The Urban Forest Project takes place on the Johns Hopkins University Beach (corner of 33rd and N. Charles) from 12 - 6 pm! Please click here to learn more about this kick-off event!

Danny here! Greetings from the snowy slopes in Whitetail resort in PA. We here at Tilt are on retreat for the next few days and hitting the trails together. Fortunately, I can post blogs on the fly!

We sat down with Fastspot to talk about their totally unique online design application encouraging community involvement in Baltimore: The Urban Forest Project.

Click here to design your own leaf!

Today’s Prize: 3 tons of Carbon Offsets in your name! This is the average use for an entire family home in one year! Pretty cool, huh?

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