Members of Transition Carrboro - Chapel Hill in North Carolina put together a beautiful mobile tree float for the Holiday Parade which took place along Main Street in Carrboro, NC, on December 12th, 2009. Tim Peck of the Transition group steering committee describes how the project came to life, what the tree represents, and the role of art in transition.

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The Tree idea got started at our steering committee retreat. We were discussing all the various areas of Transition and how to present them in a way that folks could view them easily. It may have been Margaret (Krome-Lukens) that suggested the idea of the Tree. Everyone liked the idea which at that time was intended to be two dimensional. The idea also occurred to me that the tree could be three dimensional.

Many years ago I was a principle in the Carrboro Art Group. We made large floats for the Holiday parade. I pulled some of the guys from the float making days and some new friends and my best employee to assemble the Transition Tree.

The base is a steel dolly to which are welded old gas and water pipe to form the Tree structure and branches. The pipes are covered with hardware cloth and black filter fabric. I bought bags of pine bark mulch from the local farm supply and we glued them to the fabric. The leaves are made of recycled cardboard with ceiling grid wire inserted into them to hang them on the Tree. One person is able to pull the Tree on a wire. The branches bounce up and down a little as it moves and gives it a "real tree" appearance.

Art is a wonderful way to draw attention to Transition. Art and Transition ask us to look beyond the conventional values to see new values.

We plan to take the Tree leaves with the Transition subjects written on them and have local business owners and homeowners display a leaf with the area of Transition that they support. Thanks for your work with Transition. Our steering committee is having a blast with Transition even though it seems overwhelming from time to time.

Cheers, Tim Peck
Transition Carrboro/Chapel Hill

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View full set of photos courtesy of e.m.fields / flickr.