This is what it's all about

I like to spin around our great city and take in all the sites grand and small. I have noticed over the last few years that people are traversing our pathways with blinders on to the world around them, ipods in their ears looking directly forward as if in a trance. You can nod as you pass, raise your hand and wave and maybe one out of ten people will acknowledge you. There are so many amazing things happening around us and it seems as if most people have switched off. I don't know the cause. I imagine that it's just content overload. Computers, 250 channels of TV, Satellite Radio, itunes, text messaging - the list goes on and on.

I want to find a way to pull people's attention away from all the made-up content in the world and remind them of what an amazing place the environment they live in really is. From the foothills in their backyard to the army of ants crossing the sidewalk at their feet or a new sapling rising out of the ground just off the green belt. I want to remind people that the acres and acres of green grass in our parks is a great place to lie down and just take a nap.

I propose to call people's attention in the most literal way: signs. Bold signs in settings that people are not used to seeing them. Large arrows with impossible to ignore text that points out a bird nesting in the tree above them. Or large dimensional letters that say PLAY HERE in an open field or pointing out discarded trash along the riverbank. There are a thousand different things that could use a new call to attention.

I plan to make no less than twenty unique calls to people's attention over the next 12 months. Each sign will be displayed in and around the downtown area. All signs will be made with 95% found and reused materials crafted into professional looking signs at Trademark Sign Company. Look! will be a family project that my children, Brooke, age 6 and Jack, age 10, are very excited to participate in. The project will be documented through photography and video with spectator reactions and comments uploaded to a Web blog after each event.

I'm excited at the possibilities for a project like this to take people if only for a few moments out of their media saturated worlds and remind them of this special and fragile environment we call home.