3. The little park that could. Portland’s Two Plum Park is a testament to the strength of a neighborhood. Once a vacant, overgrown lot, the surrounding community banded together to transform this tiny green space into a city park. Now a local nonprofit is raising funds to install a bench in Two Plum, completing a revitalization that began nearly 15 years ago. Won’t you be their neighbor? It’s our Project of the Day.

    The little park that could.

    Portland’s Two Plum Park is a testament to the strength of a neighborhood.

    Once a vacant, overgrown lot, the surrounding community banded together to transform this tiny green space into a city park. Now a local nonprofit is raising funds to install a bench in Two Plum, completing a revitalization that began nearly 15 years ago.

    Won’t you be their neighbor? It’s our Project of the Day.

    View on Kickstarter

  4. The sound of growing things.

    The Switched-On Garden is an outdoor art experiment that merges technology and the natural world through live music and participatory installations.

    The team behind this bio-interactive event successfully funded the project on Kickstarter and just uploaded an eight-part documentary of the strange and wondrous day in Bartram’s Garden.

    View on Kickstarter

  5. Light it up.

    Ever since he was a child, photographer Fernando Ortiz has loved a certain lonely mango tree on top of a mountain in his native Puerto Rico.

    This year, he decided to give the tree a gift and illuminate it with a web of solar-powered LED lights. He successfully raised the necessary funds on Kickstarter and finished installing the lights just in time for the holidays. The neighbors are proud, the tree looks beautiful, and Ortiz is thinking about new ways to mobilize his community to make public projects together.

    View on Kickstarter
  7. Birds of Ohio. A once derelict bridge underpass has been rejuvenated by ALTernative, a community design group based in Columbus, Ohio. Earlier this year the team set out to transform an underpass caked with grafitti into a space that not only enhanced the landscape, but featured it. They painted over the scattered tags to create a new mural featuring 35 bird species native to Ohio.  It’s been five months since the project ended and the team has just been honored with the 2012 Presidential Award award from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Even more exciting, a new grant has been established which will continue to ensure that the mural, and its surrounding park, are maintained for years to come.  

    Birds of Ohio.

    A once derelict bridge underpass has been rejuvenated by ALTernative, a community design group based in Columbus, Ohio. Earlier this year the team set out to transform an underpass caked with grafitti into a space that not only enhanced the landscape, but featured it. They painted over the scattered tags to create a new mural featuring 35 bird species native to Ohio. 

    It’s been five months since the project ended and the team has just been honored with the 2012 Presidential Award award from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Even more exciting, a new grant has been established which will continue to ensure that the mural, and its surrounding park, are maintained for years to come.  

    View on Kickstarter
  8. Urban playground. San Francisco’s Come Out and Play festival will transform the city into a giant outdoor playground. The free, volunteer-organized event includes an exhibition of collaborative, public street games that opens this weekend at SOMArts. The Festival proper goes down December 1-2, with large-scale, live games throughout the neighborhood. RSVP to skip the lines at the opening party tomorrow night!

    Urban playground.

    San Francisco’s Come Out and Play festival will transform the city into a giant outdoor playground.

    The free, volunteer-organized event includes an exhibition of collaborative, public street games that opens this weekend at SOMArts. The Festival proper goes down December 1-2, with large-scale, live games throughout the neighborhood.

    RSVP to skip the lines at the opening party tomorrow night!

  9. No more tears.

    Acceptable Reasons to Cry in Public is a participatory art project by “A Girl in Salt Lake City.” The girl in question (a writer and artist from the University of Utah) launched a Kickstarter project to find support for her publication, solicit stories from backers, and deputize a crew of curator-distributors.

    It worked. She sold out the entire run of the broadsheet and got hundreds of strangers invovled, resulting in a simultaneous exhibition wherever her backers live. Beginning this morning, all 336 backers will post three copies of the essay in public places, documenting each installation and sending the results back to the artist.

    Getting all the essays mailed out in time proved to be a little tricky, when Mother Nature intervened with a snowstorm. But the artist, her collaborator  and a friendly employee of the USPS managed to wrangle each publication out to its backer. We’re looking forward to the teary results.

  10. Live from Times Square. Congratulations to the entire team behind Peace & Quiet — a temporary pavilion installed in the heart of Times Square. Constructed in time for Veterans Day, the architectural intervention is designed to provide a calm and inclusive environment for soldiers and civilians to discuss military service. Check out the live feed from the square! And for those readers in the city, make a reservation online and visit the dialog station from now through Friday.

    Live from Times Square.

    Congratulations to the entire team behind Peace & Quiet — a temporary pavilion installed in the heart of Times Square. Constructed in time for Veterans Day, the architectural intervention is designed to provide a calm and inclusive environment for soldiers and civilians to discuss military service.

    Check out the live feed from the square! And for those readers in the city, make a reservation online and visit the dialog station from now through Friday.

  12. Tracks of my tears This past summer, for reasons that need not be named, two best friends found themselves crying in public places. This tearful duo may have made a public spectacle, but the experience served as inspiration for a tongue-in-cheek essay dubbed Acceptable Reasons to Cry in Public. Satirical in tone, but utterly sincere in intent, the co-authors felt it was a natural next step to make their words as public as the misty meltdown. Together, they’re printing the piece as a series of broadsheet, letter-pressed posters. Backers are encouraged to post three copies in public spaces of their choosing, keeping one for themselves. Meanwhile, we’re posting the as our Project of the Day. Sniff.

    Tracks of my tears

    This past summer, for reasons that need not be named, two best friends found themselves crying in public places.

    This tearful duo may have made a public spectacle, but the experience served as inspiration for a tongue-in-cheek essay dubbed Acceptable Reasons to Cry in Public. Satirical in tone, but utterly sincere in intent, the co-authors felt it was a natural next step to make their words as public as the misty meltdown.

    Together, they’re printing the piece as a series of broadsheet, letter-pressed posters. Backers are encouraged to post three copies in public spaces of their choosing, keeping one for themselves. Meanwhile, we’re posting the as our Project of the Day. Sniff.

  14. In 1984, the city of Los Angeles invited ten renowned artists to create original artworks for public display in honor of that year’s Olympic Games. The finished murals became a great source of civic pride, but the intervening decades saw them fall into heavy despair. Enter The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, a coalition of artists, public art advocates, and city officials that set about meticulously restoring these massive pieces of public art. Above, you can see them at work on Glenna Avila’s “L.A. Freeway Kids” — check out more on their Kickstarter page.

    In 1984, the city of Los Angeles invited ten renowned artists to create original artworks for public display in honor of that year’s Olympic Games. The finished murals became a great source of civic pride, but the intervening decades saw them fall into heavy despair. Enter The Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, a coalition of artists, public art advocates, and city officials that set about meticulously restoring these massive pieces of public art. Above, you can see them at work on Glenna Avila’s “L.A. Freeway Kids” — check out more on their Kickstarter page.

  15. Brooklyn-based arts and events space The Invisible Dog is ready and waiting to blow you away with it’s fourth season. With Kickstarter, they hope to fund half a dozen new exhibitions, a slew of new performances, and a handful of creative residencies — all as part of their ongoing mission to bring little known, up-and-coming artists into the eye of the general public. Well, we’re watching! And we like what we see so far, so we’ve made them our Project of the Day.

    Brooklyn-based arts and events space The Invisible Dog is ready and waiting to blow you away with it’s fourth season. With Kickstarter, they hope to fund half a dozen new exhibitions, a slew of new performances, and a handful of creative residencies — all as part of their ongoing mission to bring little known, up-and-coming artists into the eye of the general public. Well, we’re watching! And we like what we see so far, so we’ve made them our Project of the Day.