Children's Nest Egg at Parktacular

Children's Nest Egg had a booth at the "Promote Yourself" section of Parktacular at Wolfe Park on June 14. The designer talked to many passers-by on the beautiful Saturday afternoon and almost 80 writing forms were handed out. A clay model of the bench was created during the event, and several kids took a turn at shaping and smoothing the model. Here are some images of what was on display:

Also on June 13, 5-10 p.m., the St. Louis Park Community Foundation included materials for the project at their table at the Parktacular Street Dance with Tim Mahoney Band at Excelsior and Grand Town Green.

New Videos of Legacy Leaving Event and Reading

Reg Dunlap of SLP Cable/ParkTV generously took and produced these videos to be available online. Technical note from Reg: The good news is that most computers can play thefile; the bad news is you must have "high speed" bandwidth to watch thevideo, not dial up. Select the URL below and then "high speed" from the title page.

1) Video tour of Children's Nest Egg location at Westwood Hills Nature Center and Invitation for writing collection. link to video

2) Jonee Kulman Brigham briefly describes the Children's Nest Egg, and Dan Philippon reads from selected works about the themes, "gifts" and "the wild." link to video

Legacy Leaving Event Update

For the Legacy Leaving event, we are fortunate to have a guest speaker: Daniel J. Philippon, Environmental Author of Conserving Words; How American Nature Writers Shaped the Environmental Movement. Also at the event you can hear about the project process, see drawings of the design and the location where it will be installed, and -- most importantly -- express your appreciation of nature in prose or poetry and become part of the art. Instructions and rules for submitting writing will be given at the event, and posted online afterwards. The due date for writing submissions will be June 30th, 2008. The Westwood Hills Nature Center is full of sources of inspiration both outdoors and from the interpretive materials available in the building. Community writings will be incorporated into the installation and unveiled at the “Nest Raising" event later this summer.

Download flyer for May 17 Legacy Leaving Event

The Poem

This is what I wrote last year about what inspired the design and the poem.

---

“I am drawn to the arboretum’s small, enveloping clearings in the trees and feel nurtured by them. Many of the individual trees, themselves, seem delicate and vulnerable. These feelings recall my recent entry into motherhood, my work for global sustainability and my increasing awareness of global warming and I see parallels in my instinct to nurture at various scales. I appreciate the trees - how each fragile one, in its ‘breathing,’ continually works to maintain our atmosphere. I see the mutual nurturing as a circle - where we are both a ‘child of’ as well as a ‘parent of’ the earth.”

---

I'd also been singing a lot of lullaby songs, which I think affected the rhythm of it. I sometimes sang this poem to my boys to try it out to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," or "All the Pretty Little Horses."

Background

This art installation was first designed and built as a winning entry in the juried exhibition for a seasonal show at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Art-To-Amaze Walk on display from June 16, 2007 to September 30, 2007.

(Image: Board submitted for the Arboretum Competition)

The idea to rebuild and adapt it for St. Louis Park came from a St. Louis Park resident that was visiting the sculpture and was sad to see that it was only going to be available until September. She suggested that it be rebuilt in St. Louis Park under the public art grant program there. The public art program’s focus on community engagement sparked new ideas for the adaptation, and the community environmental education and appreciation mission of the Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park made it the obvious choice for a new home.