Clearwater Conference

Business Volunteers Unlimited Maryland's GIVE program Community Involvement Day with Parks and People

An amazing group of volunteers from Business Volunteer's Unlimited's GIVE program picked up trash, painted on the Arabbers Fence and installed the large fruits that will decorate the front of the fence!

BVU inspires volunteerism and connects people and businesses to nonprofit organizations leading to stronger communities. The program GIVE, Getting Involved in Volunteer Experiences, is a program of BVU. They aim to raise awareness among the next generation of civic leaders about the growing need for volunteerism and to engage them in the community while providing educational learning seminars to help them develop personally and professionally.

This program could be a great asset to the growing initiatives of AGE. I hope to learn more from and about this incredible group of leaders.

Earth Day 2011

Baltimore Ravens and M&T Bank clean and green the entrance to Gwynns Falls Trail on Warner Street

For Earth Day 2011 Art for a Greener Environment designed and painted a signage mural for part of the long Gwynns Falls trail. Along with the mural, volunteers built benches, created a "doggie dumping area", and cleaned out and installed a garden bed that had become overgrown along the entrance.

While the skies looked threatening, the rain held out until the festivities were over. The sign in about 80% complete. AGE is currently looking for volunteers to come out and help with the finishing touches.

Shouldn't every day be Earth Day!

The wall at 8:00

Wall at 10:00

Volunteer greening projects on Gwynns Falls Trail

M&T Bank staff and Baltimore Ravens Cheerleaders

News Coverage can be found at Fox45 Baltimore and WJZ13

http://news.yahoo.com/video/baltimorewjz13-15750602/#video=24997286

Legg Mason Volunteer Day 4.8.11

For their earth week activities, volunteers from Legg Mason joined Art for a Greener Environment and Parks and People out on The Bruce Street Fence for a paint day. We FINALLY got up some of the large fruit cut outs! Horse and wagons coming soon! It also looks like we will be getting some more paint from a generous donation so that we can finish up the project.

Thank you Legg Mason Volunteers!

Parks and People Faculty Volunteer Day

Members of the staff are also very excited to see this project come along! So excited that they even came out to help paint last Friday. We were able to outline the rest of the back of the fence and start filling in some major areas. Have I mentioned how excited I am to see this all come together!

We have had a lot of support from the people living on Bruce Street. Everyone really appreciates the color we have added to their neighborhood. One of our biggest fans is the man who owns the stable with the Arabber horses and carriages. This ALSO happens to be the stable where they filmed some of the last scenes of the series The Wire. They let us use their water, say "hi" to the horses, and see their carts.

Back of the Fence Begins!

Here are some recent pictures of the fully touched up, front fence.

We have finally gotten to the back of the fence!! Thanks to Parks and People's Youth Core for coming out on Wednesdays to help!

Loyola Volunteer Day

We were very lucky to have some Loyola Volunteers come help us get some color on the big, white fence. They woke up before 8, on a Saturday, to drive all the way to West Baltimore for community service. They rocked! We got the entire front of the fence done in 4 hours. They also had a wonderful sense of community spirit and truly understood the value of donating their time to a project. We are hoping to have them back again to help with the completion of the project.

3D Design Model

The design for the fence has two major themes: 1) to reflect the colorful heritage of the Baltimore Arabber cart tradition and 2) to complement and play off of the fruit trees planted in the greened area.

Baltimore Arrabbers are street cart vendors local to the east coast. Arrabbing is predominantly a male, African American tradition of selling fruit out of a horse-drawn wagon. On Bruce Street we are lucky enough to have one of the oldest Arabber barns in Baltimore! With this design, I wanted to draw attention to the horses and create a space for them to roam. The entrances of the fence feature two horse-drawn wagons with fruit spilling out over the top of them. The fruit then continues to enlarge, and pears, apples and cherries cascade down the rest of the fence. On the back, a different assemblage of fruits are painted directly onto the fence. To make the fence into a more solid structure I also added more boards to the back. This made the fence into a wall-like structure and made it easy to transform the fence into a mural.

For my senior thesis studio, I made a 3D model of the entire fence out of basswood. To explain the process, I took images of just the middle section of the fence through the different transitions.

NOTE: This does not include the cut-out pieces that will be on the front of the fence.

Here is a picture of a Baltimore Arabber. They are hardly seen in the streets anymore because many of their barns have been shut down. Many cities have made them illegal, but Baltimore is one of the last cities to hold onto this tradition.

First Fence Sightings

I started working with Parks and People when a friend of mine, Bryant Smith, started telling me about a project he was just funded for that involved a need for artists. Bryant took me out to see one of lots he and his team had recently transformed into an urban "green" space. Many vacant houses get torn down in Baltimore and create spaces where people then decide to dump their garbage. The Great Parks Division of Parks and People take care of "greening" these properties.

The Bruce Street project is one of the largest lots in Watershed 263, a water drainage system composed of more than a hundred storm drains that empties into the Chesapeake Bay. Bryant and his team cleaned out the lot, planted fruit tress, and put up a large wooden fence to prevent further dumping. The space has been transformed into a green area for the community. With a little extra stimulus money, Bryant was able to hire me on as the artist to design and complete the fence to further integrate the space from eyesore to park. The beautification of the fence would also prevent people from backing their trucks up to dump more waste.

These are pictures from my fist sight visit.

Where is the Fence?

West Baltimore within the Watershed 263 , 2 blocks up from the Bon Secour Community Building.