2 0 1 7 A Kingfisher's Dream: Walking Water takes a break from phase III of their 550 mile pilgrimage from Mono Lake to the confluence of the Los Angeles River with the ocean to join with participants from three Los Angeles Schools to form a beautiful kingfisher on a school field bordering the LA River. The kingfisher is a bird that is emblematic of a healthy watershed. In the form of a giant living painting, the bird became an embodied prayer that we become wise stewards of water and rewilders of damaged rivers. The Be Kind Bee: Clinton Elementary School in Clinton South Carolina forms a bee and spells the word "kind" with 600+ students and staff. A Family Tree: Ogden Elementary School on Long Island, NY forms a tree with falling apples and leaves and a special message. Sea Otter Sky: In Pacific Grove, California the students and staff of Robert Down Elementary School celebrate and literally become, the emblematic sea mammal of their region; the sea otter. An Astro Halloween: On Halloween, 350 students and staff at Walter Schirra Elementary School in New Jersey form an astronaut. The Tree of Life: 600 form a tree with falling fruit at Concord Elementary School in Darien, Illinois. Changemaker in Motion: 600 students and staff from Bodkin Elementary in Pasadena, Maryland form a colorful mandala in celebration of their chosen attributes which make them a "changemaker" school. The Human Surfboard: 900 students and teachers at Long Beach Middle School in Long Beach, NY create the world's largest (and likely only!) "human surfboard" with a potent message to this ground zero climate change location, about the importance of awakening a new way of riding the waves our unique time is presenting. Today It's Your Birthday: 1000 students and teachers at Moorestown Upper Elementary School in New Jersey form the world's largest human birthday cake. Their message: "Treat everyone as if it is their birthday." M E R M A I D: Crescent Elk Middle School in Crescent City, California does Art For the Sky every year. This beautiful Mermaid is their 7th and may be the best one yet! She sports a plastic bottle necklace with a heart locket, a tiger lilly in her hair, tin can accents on her guitar and of course 580 students . . . as the body's scales. Once I Was a Great Blue Heron: 850 students and teachers at Fairfield Elementary become a beautiful great blue heron in flight. The Day of the Bat: Pembroke Elementary School in Troy, MIchigan is passionate about bats. Each year the 3rd graders make bat houses. In the spring of 2017 the entire school became a bat out on their field. The Bina of Curacao: During the International Plein Air Art festival on the Caribbean island of Curacao, children from 23 schools gather to form the island's seldom seen, indigenous deer that they are so proud of, called the "bina". Today I Was a Grey Whale: 600 students and teachers become a grey whale at Canalino Elementary School in Carpinteria, California. We Dreamed We Were Sockeye: I never thought I'd be able to feature a flight around Denali in one of my Art For the Sky films! In Talkeetna, Alaska, in the heart of winter, I did just that during my week long residency program teaching school children and teachers about the importance of awakening our skysight and culminating in a gorgeous 50ft. sockeye salmon. A Shell For the Sky: 500 students and staff at Waimea Canyon School on Kauai form the islands emblematic sunrise shell. Mustang Sky: At the `Ele`ele elementary school on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, 550 students and teachers form their mascot: a beautiful mustang. The Day I Was a Bear: 600 take the form of a colorful bear at Browns Valley Elementary School in Napa, CA. 2 0 1 6 Dolphin Daydream: 550 students and teachers from Wayside Elementary School in Potomac, Maryland form a dolphin rising out of a sea made of blue jeans. Zydeco Sky: Louisiana . . . cajun . . . zydeco! I love the cultural flavor and musical spirit of this state! This project celebrated that with The Center for Visual and Performing Arts, a special elementary school in Baton Rouge. 600+ students and staff along with miscellaneous materials form zydeco musician playing an accordion. The Beating Heart of Texas: 600 students and staff from Town Center Elementary in Coppell, Texas form the state of Texas with a stunning beating heart. The Kirkland Warbler: 800 students and staff from Lindemann Elementary in Allen Park, MI form the endangered and beautiful Kirtland Warbler. Koala Daydream: 500 students and teachers at J.W. Killam Elementary school in Reading, MA form a koala bear sitting in a tree. The Pen Pals Project: The Pen Pals project originating from the Grand River Territory in Ontario, Canada facilitates indigenous students and their neighbors writing letters back and forth throughout the school year in order to increase cross cultural tolerance and understanding. Pen Pals is a celebration of peace and friendship. This video documents their 10th Anniversary gathering. R O A R!: 380 students and teachers from Tobin Elementary School in Burbank, IL form the head of a growling tiger. Up Up & Away: 500+ students and staff at Hood River Middle School in Hood River, Oregon "take flight" in a beautiful hot air balloon. Lighthouse School: Maxwell Elementary school near Tuscaloosa, Alabama is a Leader in Me School which teaches the 7 Habits of Happy Kids.. In spring of 2016 they got their certification of as an official Lighthouse School, one of only 187 in the world. The Wise Owl: 500 Johnson Elementary students and staff create a coloful owl on a rainy day in New Jersey. The Art of Recovery: In Kansas City, MO, approximately 100 participants celebrated the power of hope in recovery from addiction by forming the shape of a human with arms raised upwards towards the sun. Sponsored by Valley Hope and First Call. Complete the Circle - 2016: 1000 people in Fairfax County, Virginia come out to participate in the 6th annual Complete the Circle event. Reach For the Stars: Ashton Elementary celebrates it's 40th anniversary by becoming an astronaut reaching and grabbing a star. The Winged Earth: 1300 students and staff of Stonewall Tell Elementary in College Park, Georgia create an Earth with wings. The Peninsula Pelican: In NSW's Central Coast of Australia, the Gosford City Counci organized three schools and 1200 students and staff to collaborate in the creation of the Peninsula totem: a pelican. This special, aerial-art event was a dedication for the new oval sports park in Woy Woy.Thank you everyone! I'm dreaming of an Australian and New Zealand tour for 2017! The Tornadoes: There are only a couple of primary schools in the nation who have a tornado for a mascot. Matthews Elementary in Northport, Alabama is named for Virgil E. Matthews who died leading students to safety during a tornado that destroyed the old school in 1932. To honor the power and majesty of nature with the hope that a tornado not touch their school again, the students and staff create a tornado descending from a cloud. Great Grey Owl: Crescent Elk School, in Crescent City, CA does their 6th sky art project, a great grey owl. This school has done more sky art projects than any other! Thanks everyone! A Special Owl: 40 or so in wheel chairs, one with an IV and a few hundred other special needs students, age 3-22, (and their very special staff!) of Gretchen Everhart School in Tallahasse, FL form an owl. Wow . . . what an unusual and moving project. WHO WHO are these special people? 2 0 1 5 BROKEN SKY: Broken Sky is a short aerial-art, music video depicting the Earth slipping through an hourglass performed by 1200 middle school kids in Miami, Florida. The song, Broken Sky, is an anthem for kids against climate change, a plea to world leaders to wake up and begin taking strong action NOW! This project was done Dec. 8th, 2015 coinciding with the conclusion of the Paris Climate Summit. I found a very talented brother and sister duo and school chorus in Kokomo, Indiana where I went to record the song. In Miami, we did the project under very adverse conditions amidst record December rainfall . . . a very unusual and uncannily-timed climate change-related situation! Broken Sky (part 2): Can there be a stronger metaphor for what is happening to the planet with climate change than an Earth made of kids slipping through an hourglass? 1200 Miami Springs Middle School students and staff embodied this idea in their aerial-art performance on December 8th, 2015 in the midst of record December rain as the Climate Summit neared its conclusion in Paris. Complete the Circle: The 5th year Our Daily Bread - Fairfax, VA, (in partnership this year with Lorton Community Action Center) has organized this community FOOD raiser around an aerial photo of a human art installation. We had 65 teams registered and 1500 people came out today bringing with them over 11,000+ lbs. of food for our neighbors in need. Vienna House Band of the School of Rock provided wonderful entertainment. Artist Daniel Dancer coordinated the people and filmed it from the sky. A New Species of Butterfly: 1500 middle school students from Lake Braddock school in Virginia form a colorful butterfly at 8:30 in the morning. Heron-Lake-Sky: In the beautiful finger lakes region of New York, 600 students and staff of the Honeoye Community School form a great blue heron standing in a lake made of blue jeans under a sky made of sheets. i Train: In Galva, Ilinois the local elementary school celebrates the towns long history with the train that runs through town by creating one! A Viking Dream: In Geneva, IL, Millcreek Elementary School creates a beautiful viking ship. i Tiger: 500 Lower Southampton Elementary School kids and teachers in Feasterville, PA, create the head of a tiger and have a dance party afterwards. This is one of the funnest videos to date and first project in Pennsylvania. i Sabertooth: 2500 students and staff of the Sutherland Family of Schools in North Vancouver, BC, Canada collaborate to create a sabertooth tiger mandala. Salmon Circle: All grades of Washington's Lyle School District in the Columbia Gorge, my homeland, gather on a beautiful hillside to celebrate the region's sacred & ancient relationship with salmon through the creation of a native version of the fish. Home Rising: Franklin Elementary in Omaha, Nebraska creates a house with a sun rising over it as a symbol of the revitalization of their neighborhood though a project called the Prospect Village initiative. i Redwood Tree: Crescent Elk Middle School in Crescent City, CA (who has done more sky art projects than any other school) created a life size, 280 ft redwood tree. i Cardinal: Celebrating one of North America's most beautiful birds, 800 students and staff at Canopy Oaks Elementary in Tallahassee, Florida become a cardinal on a branch with flowers set in a background sky made of 2000 pairs of blue jeans collected by 5 local schools (a traveling sky!) who each did a separate project. Return of the Whooping Cranes: Set in a "sky" made of 2000 pairs of blue jeans, over 1000 students and teachers formed two endangered whooping cranes in flight . . . and then the next day, twelve real whooping cranes showed up and danced their famous dance in a magical way. Thank you Gilchrist Elementary for this excellent adventure and your deep care about these very special birds! Holding up the Sky: A Message from the Passenger Pigeons - To honor the 100th anniversary of the extinction of Martha, the last passenger pigeon, 1100 students and staff from Kate Sullivan Elementary in Tallahassee, Florida create a gigantic living painting of the bird on their field. The bird is depicted as "holding up the sky" (sky made of 2000 pairs of blue jeans) a metaphor, given the dangers of our rapidly changing climate, for our need to transform our relationship with the sky from one of abuse to one of healing. This is the first extinct species immortalized in Art For the Sky. i Butterfly: 800 students and staff at DeSoto Trail Elementary in Tallahassee, FL become an endangered Schaus Swallowtail Butterly set a the traveling sky made of 2000 pairs of blue jeans. I Dreamed I Was a Painted Bunting: 600 students and teachers at Chaires Elementary School in Tallahassee, form one of North America's most beautiful birds perched on a branch with a sky background made of 1500 pairs of blue jeans! Thanks everyone! 2 0 1 4 Timberwolf: Thornhill Woods School near Toronto, Ontario in Canada creates a beautiful timberwolf with their school of nearly 1000. P I A N O S K Y: 1000 students and teachers at West Creek Academy in Santa Clarita, CA form a gigantic grand piano and play it as well! The Living Piano: A two minute short film highlighting the Grand Piano creation in Santa Clarita, Californina The Day of the Tiger: Moorestown Upper Elementary School in New Jersey creates a portrait of a beautiful white tiger with a special message. Watch the video to find out what it is! white tigers are beautiful for sure but kind of a freak of nature that only know captivity. The Singing Tree: A school in Morgantown, West Virginia, completes a beautiful tree of life emerging from the Earth. First the poles melt, then the fruit falls and then the leaves blow away and finally the tree comes apart . . all a depiction of what happens when we don't take care of the Earth. This is one of my favorite projects made entirely human "pixels" Children Are the Future: Maxwell Elementary School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama implements the 7 Habits of Happy Kids in every grade. I have never been to a school with such outstanding, and mature children from kindergarten on up. It was truly something to behold. The 7 Habits are spreading. Watch the video to learn what they are and see what they created as a celebration of the future! An Artist's Palette: The Wallace Integrated School of the Arts does just that, integrates the arts in every single subject. It's a rare school indeed that does this and power of this method shows by them having the best test scores of any elementary school in the county. We celebrated the arts together in the creation of an artist's palette. What made this project really special was playing guitar and singing Wings to Fly via a remote mic high atop a fire truck while everyone sang and danced below! Alligator Sky: Super fun project in Venice, Florida in creating an Alligator at Garden Elementary School. A Bulldog's Message: Pleasant View Middle School in Overland Park, Kansas creates a special version of their bulldog mascot . . . a young pup with a special mission during Earthday week, 2014. A Grizzly Bear Dream: 900 students and staff from Mountainview Elementary in Santa Clarita create a giant grizzly bear, a creature found on the state flag but unfortunately long extinct in California. 2 0 1 3 A Dragon's Peace: A dragon curls protectively around a giant peace sign made of blue jeans as Oak View Elementary School in Silver Spring Maryland breathes fire through the creature's nose. I love doing projects when movement can be brought into the design! White Tail Sky: Deer Park Elementary School in Owensboro, Kentucky creates a white tail deer. Flight School: Springer School and Center in Cincinnati, Ohio creates a perched bald eagle ready for take off with 250 students and staff. A Falcon's Message: The students and staff at Florence Meares school in Burlington, Ontario, Canada created a falcon so big it required a helicopter to get up and film it. Blue Jay Sky: 500 students and teachers from Brookside Elementary School in Lake Forest Park, WA form a beautiful blue jay . . . with the help of a lot of blue jeans! Thunderbird: Students and staff from Council Grove Elementary in Okalhoma form a beautiful thunderbird. Earth In Hand: Hillside Elementary School in Closter, New Jersey creates an image which is a metaphor for our plight as humans. The choice is ours. What will we create? There are about 400 kids squeezed into the Earth In Hand . . . the current level of carbon in our atmosphere. The last time it was this high was 2.5 million years ago. There were no ice caps then, the sea was 5 meters higher, the climate 3 degrees centigrade warmer: not conducive for human life. The Redtail's Gift: Hawthorne Elementary school is in rural Riverside, CA and is surrounded by orange groves, which is why their logo is a redtail hawk carrying an orange! Made of about 800 students and teachers, the hawk was so long it required getting up in a helicopter to film the image which is one of my favorites. O R C A S K Y: This project was a celebration of the orca and an effort to communicate with them in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, Crescent City, California. Crescent Elk Middle School has done more aerial art projects than any other school. Amazingly, immediately after our creation, two wild orcas showed up in the city harbor, a never before seen event witnessed by 30 people! The Cougar's Gift: Flying in an ultralight over a giant cougar made of kids and teachers: what could be more fun than that!? Aborga Elementary School near Marysville, California was the setting for this event. What is the cougar's gift? Watch and find out! 2 0 1 2 Shine: Imagine a school with a lighthouse for a mascot! The Beech Hill Elementary School beacons shone brightly in their creation of a giant, colorful lighthouse made of about 1200 students and teachers. The Red Plane: They call themselves the "aviators". McCall Elementary School in Waukegan did a wonderful job forming a red plane with their 600 students and thanks to a real live aviator with a little red plane, turned art in to reality right on the spot! Shine On Sailfish: 1800 students at Miami Springs Middle School in Florida form a beautiful Sailfish. Complete the Circle: Fairfax County in Virginia is the richest county in the nation and yet each day there are 70,000 people there who don't know where their next meal is coming from. Our Daily Bread is a local non-profit group who works to alleviate this situation and Complete the Circle is their annual aerial art festival which celebrates the work they do. Participants bring food which becomes part of the aerial art and then afterwards it is distributed to families in need. The Great Wakes Festival: An aerial art creation of the Great Lakes was a central feature of the first Great Wakes: A Celebration of Water festival in Traverse City, Michigan where folks had the opportunity to celebrate liquid from the sky . . . i.e., it rained pretty much the whole damn time. An Otter Sky: Ruch, a small rural school in southern Oregon, celebrates the american river otter with a special creation out in their athletic field. 2 0 1 1 The Tree of Life: Pioneer Elementary School in Sunnyside, WA created a beautiful Tree of Life with leaves that, in the end, get blown off by a "hurricane." The Sky Horse: 1000 students and teachers from North Park Elementary in Valencia, CA form a running horse on their blacktop playing area. Big Foot Sky: Is Bigfoot real? In 2007 it was to Carson School in Skamania County, WA where there is a long history of sightings in the region. There is even a law here stating that it is illegla to kill a bigfoot! 300 students and staff an a truck load of wood chips brought bigfoot to life. The Elephant in the Room: From India to Maryland - - Holland to Canada: this is a tour of gigantic and magnificent living paintings made of people . . . people engaged in a special way to help solve our climate crisis. Climate change is the proverbial "elephant in the room" and we continue to ignore it at our peril. This video is an entry for many current film festivials and is a wake up call to the power of a special number and the beauty of engaged collaboration. A Peaceful Uprising: On February 28th in Salt Lake City, Utah, hundreds of activists took to the streets to sing, march and do sky art in a display of solidarity with Tim DeChristopher, aka "bidder 70", whose trial for civil disobedience in defense of Utah wilderness and climate justice began that day. A Pelican Dream: Sometimes an Art For the Sky project feels like a way of beginning to atone for something really awful, like the Deep Horizon Oil Spill Disaster. This one was like that . . . a group at-one-ment, a giant apology to all the ocean and sky creatures damaged and killed by the oil spill . . . a commitment to end our addiction to oil and take better care of the Earth . . . in the shape of a beautiful pelican on the edge of Tallahassee, Florida at the Chaires Elementary School. The Crescent Elk: 600 Crescent Elk School students and staff celebrate their name sake animal by becoming one! I Am A Coral Reef: In the Dominican Republic, 1400 K-12 students and teachers become a coral reef featuring an endangered long-snouted sea horse. Red Tail Eyes: 50 kids and staff of Baldwin City Primary and Intermediate School in Baldwin City, Kansas, form a red tail hawk. The number "350" is "carved" into the post the hawk "landed" on . . . arguably the most important number in the world as, according to leading climate scientists, it is the safe limit of carbon we can have in our atmosphere if we want to continue life as we know it. Currently it is 390 and going up! A Prairie Dream: The Kansas Tallgrass Prairie is the most endangered ecosystem on Earth. In Lawrence, Kansas, after visiting and learning about local relict prairies, 450 students and teachers became a meadowlark and blowing prairie grass in celebration of the this special ecosystem. The Tree of Peace: 1200 pen pals from Six Nations and surrounding communities in Ontario, Canada gather to meet each other for the first time and form a gigantic white pine tree -- the legendary "Tree of Peace" of the Iroquois Confederacy -- with roots wrapping around the Earth. During the gathering the children planted the Pen Pal Friendship Forest at the Tim Horton Onondaga Farm celebrating the important role forests play in our lives. Oceans Day 2011: 1300 students and teachers gather in Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada to form a gigantic basking shark "swimming" in an ocean made of blue jeans. The basking shark was nearly hunted to extinction by previous generations. Now protected, it is slowly in recovery. This event was hosted by the Oceans Day Festival Society. An Alevin Sky: In collaboration with the Fraser Riverkeeper Society in Vancouver, BC, Canada; 700 students and teachers from Hastings Elementary School form a beautiful alevin (baby salmon). Earlier in the year, some classes raised these young salmon fry and released them in a local river. This is the smallest creature "made big" to date! Complete the Circle: Fairfax County, Virginia is one of the richest counties in America and yet 70,000 people there are "food insecure" every day. In this project, 800 people from 30 organizations circled a design with 3000 pounds of food and then got in it to form two hands holding an apple and an ear of corn. This event was sponsored by Our Daily Bread, Inc 2 0 1 0 Redwood Resurrection: Art For the Sky goes to Burning Man in the Nevada desert to portray a falling and rising redwood tree as commentary on BM's theme for the year: The American Dream. Sky~Blue~Heron: 650 students and teachers from Griffin Creek Elementary and the Bach School of South Medford High for a great blue heron with recycled cans for legs in Medford, OR. Ganesh's Warning: In Delhi, India, 3000 students form the proverbial "elephant in the room" which is what climate change is. This image was part of the first ever Global Art Exhbit visible from space, all in conjunction with the climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico. Ganesh, an elephant diety loved by everyone all across in India. He is "the remover of obstacles" and this film celebrates his message and his wild brethren. The Sky Tiger: In October, 2010, the International Year of the Tiger . . . 500 kids, lots of pine needles and mulch combine to make a beautiful tiger 150 ft long, with the most important number in the world on it's paw . . . "350". (see 350.org if you need an explanation). This was done at the Terra Centre Elementary School in Burke, Virginia. A Whale of a Time: A sperm whale washed up on the beach of Crescent City, California in 2008. It's belly was filled with over 50 large pieces of fishing net and assorted plastic which is what killed the whale. To celebrate and honor this species, 900 students and teachers from Crescent Elk Middle School and Joe Hamilton School formed the spouting whale swimming in the ocean, which was made in part with 500 pairs of blue jeans. Don't Give Up: Set to a Michael Franki song . . . at a Whidbey Island retreat, the Wisdom Community had a ceremony around a big dove made of sheets to help awaken their skysight. The Day of the Egret: To celebrate the restoration of the wetlands next to them, An Eagle Sky: 1400 students and staff from Miami Springs Middle School in Miami Springs Florida form a bald eagle with a "350" in the center . . . the most important number in the world as that is the maximum parts per million of greenhouse gasses that we can have in our atmosphere if we are going to survive global warming. Right now it is 390 and going up! A Polar Bear Sky: Would you believe Maryland's Governor O'Malley was the sole human on the melting ice berg in this Art For the Sky depiction of global warming?! Courageous guy he was to be part of this performance sky art piece for the Maryland Green School's Summit at Sandy Point State Park on the Chesapeake Bay. As usual in this latest round of sky art projects the magic number "350" is depicted . . . that's the max parts per million of carbon, according to climate scientists, that we can handle in our atmosphere if we are going to make it through this climate changing era with some degree of safety. As most everyone knows, the current number is 390 and going up. Coincidentally, Maryland has 350 "green schools" (16% - the highest in the nation) and this summit and special sky art extravaganza was a celebration of their success! Aspen Planet: To kick off Earth week at Aspen Middle School in Colorado, 500 + students and teachers form an Earth with a white dove made of snow flying above it. In the dove's wing is the number "350" . . . the maximum parts per million of green house gasses that we can have in our atmosphere and still have a healthy planet. Currently we are at 390 and rising . . . Eagle Pride: Earth Day 2010 celebration at Florida Gulf Coast University featured a sky art portrait of a bald eagle head with 250 students. Two-Salmon-Sky: Two elementary schools in Medford, Oregon combine to form two swimming salmon with the number "350" bubbling from their mouths. 350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. Strawberry Sky: Celebrating a Florida strawberry farmers 60th birthday with a giant strawberry made of all his friends and family. On Condor Time: Lewis Elementary in Portland, Oregon celebrates the endangered California condor.
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