Beyond the Midway (MyPort)

Nature natural earth Conserve recycle water Flora wildlife Park Education

In 2003, the Enviromental Protection Agency developed regulations and guidelines that state and local government would follow to manage storm water run offs. Recognizing the harmful impacts of rushing unmanaged storm water, the EPA began requiring state and local governments to educate the public about ways to reduce or eliminate pollution and mitigate flooding to protect the nation’s streams, rivers and lakes from rushing waters off cities, factories and other paved and covered surfaces that carried pollution and sediment from erosion. There were concerns that the “natural sponges” of the earth, wetlands, were being drained, paved over and disturbed with man-made developments. There was growing concern about other less obvious pollution such as oils, garbage, fertilizers and farm waste swept into the aquifers along with the rain waters.

Education became a priority for the new “stormwater” programs.

While many cities and counties took actions separately, officials from Central Metropolitan Tennessee began to work together, pooling their resources to develop cooperative efforts to implement the EPA requirements and to develop a common philosophy and set of guidelines. The result was the Wilson County Water Group (WCW).

It became clear that classroom learning was one thing, but seeing the technologies demonstrated on the ground was a vital part of the learning process. The WCW focused on experiential learning and needed a learning lab. The lab needed to be accessible year-round to professionals and the public to be able to explore/experience the demonstration areas on their own time. It needed to be diverse enough to include an unlimited number of technologies. It needed to offer spaces for classroom learning to easily adjourn to go walk the grounds and see the demonstration areas. Wilson County had just the place – The Fairgrounds at James E. Ward Agricultural Center.

In historic Fiddler's Grove, a Rain Garden was installed nearby to manage a ponding area within its geography. And to round out the small area, Fiddlers Grove historical building's were outfitted with Rain Barrels to harvest water for garden areas while also reducing flooding of the building. Another received “armored grass” to fix a muddy driveway. Tesselated concrete patterns or Pavers were retrofitted into parking areas to demonstrate different ways of of preserving active and high-traffic grassscapes. From there the project grew to cover many of these demonstated conservancy techniques, as well as rare and indiginous flora.

Each of these public demonstration sites and marked wildlife areas required permanent installations that would illustrate and inform the public on each landmarks importance .

I was brough on as Creative Director by Connected Sustainability Inc. to spearheading the visual direction of the project.

My overall ideas about the projects were clear from day one. My desire was to blend all installations into this stunning natural landscape. I was to avoid the tarnish of dated and tired tropes associated with countless public installation designs and federally funded projects. (The schoolbook design)

As you'll see below, much of my inspiration came from famous classical landscape artists such as Thomas Moran, whose lush watercolors of the Rocky Mountains and neighboring areas, showed such a timeless and surreal beauty, and popped off of the page. And James McNeil Whistler, who thought of watercolors and scetches as "the art of the traveler". A perfect and unique way to compliment the trail.

60"x37" kiosk map (3 installations)

Hornbeam

26"x12" Tree Sign

Sweetgum
26"x12" Tree Sign

American Sycamore
26"x12" Tree Sign

Xeripave Installation
26"x12" Installation Sign

Weeping Willow
26"x12" Tree Sign

Sweetgum
26"x12" Tree Sign

Swamp White Oak
26"x12" Tree Sign

Pawpaw
26"x12" Tree Sign

Bald Cypress
26"x12" Tree Sign

Bur Oak
26"x12" Tree Sign

Eastern Cottonwood
26"x12" Tree Sign

Field guide (Front Cover): printed on 100% recycled 100lb Gloss Cover with Aqueous Coating. Perfect for wax pencil & Sharpie notations

Field guide (Inside Spread): printed on 100% recycled 100lb Gloss Cover with Aqueous Coating. A full color trail guide with intallation locations and descriptions.

History of The Park
40"x22" Medium Sign

Wetlands
40"x22" Medium Sign

Pavers
40"x22" Medium Sign

Rain Barrels
26"x12" Small Sign

Swale
40"x22" Medium Sign

Rain Gardens
40"x22" Medium Sign

Visit the site here.

The Story of Beyond the Midway

Like all good stories, the Connected Sustainability project at the Fairgrounds has had its share of heroes and heroines. The story stretches over years of visions, of possibility, nurturing of allegiances, small steps and great leaps forward. Key players have come and gone and a few have returned to provide guidance, expertise and sweat equity.

And, like any good story Connected Sustainability begins with…

Once Upon A Time….

There was a department in the federal government that began to develop guidelines and regulations that state and local government would follow to manage storm water run offs. The changes that led to the Fairgrounds project had their beginnings in 2003.

Recognizing the harmful impacts of rushing unmanaged storm water, the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring state and local governments to educate the public about ways to reduce or eliminate pollution and mitigate flooding to protect the nation’s streams, rivers and lakes from rushing waters off cities, factories and other paved and covered surfaces that carried pollution and sediment from erosion. There were concerns that the “natural sponges” of the earth, wetlands, were being drained, paved over and disturbed with man-made developments. There was growing concern about other less obvious pollution such as oils, garbage, fertilizers and farm waste swept into the aquifers along with the rain waters.

Education became a priority for the new “stormwater” programs.

While many cities and counties took actions separately, officials from Wilson County, Lebanon and Mt. Juliet began to work together, pooling their resources to develop cooperative efforts to implement the EPA requirements and to develop a common philosophy and set of guidelines. The result was the Wilson County Water Group (WCW).