I want to create a site-specific installation at Piper's Orchard in Carkeek Park by "printing" words on apples using adhesive stencils applied to the apples that will be exposed to the rays of the sun. As the apples ripen and stencils are removed, words will be revealed forming a longer site-specific poetic text that functions as a visitor's guide for families and children based on the history of the orchard and the land. Apples will be unharmed from this process and still edible. Because apples fall off trees and get picked, I'd plan on creating a cell phone tour so that callers could hear a complete reading of the poem. I also wish to engage sound artists to make ambient field recordings of the orchard at different times of the day and season to use as a soundtrack. It's likely that I may also create a project website.

At this particular time, I need to first test the stenciling technique during the upcoming apple-ripening season which will be around September 1, so that I can perfect my technique and put together a grant application to 4Culture for the full text installation for Fall 2015. I need to pilot test my printing technique to refine the typeface/text and an experiment to see which of 3 kinds of apples in the orchard will ripen the best and highlight the contrast between the red peel and unexposed skin of the Gravenstein, Wealthy, and Red Astrachan apple varietals.

If all goes as expected, I will take what I have learned to apply for a 4Culture site-specific grant (and perhaps other grants) to write a longer text that would be installed on the apples in Fall 2015. The text that I am conceiving of is an alphabetical visitor's guide to the Piper's Orchard intended for families and children that helps to teach visitors about connection to the land, where food comes from, and the history of the Orchard itself.

I am attaching an image of the apple stenciling technique (not my image - pulled from the internet) to provide visual context.