Vistaprint is a printing firm based in the Netherlands and was the first business to offer global online desktop publishing back in 1999. They also happen to be really good and really cheap so we often use them to print beaver signs or banners. I’ve been thinking in the back of my mind about having a ‘docent wall’ explaining the way beaver ponds benefit the ecosystem so kids could understand it – pictures and not too many words. I imagined it fun to look at, and still packed with information. This could help them understand the activity or explain to parents and passers-by. I originally imagined a portable trifold wall or something to hang them, but it’s sooo windy there that would never work. Then I thought the cables on the footbridge would be a great stable, organic and accessible place to hang the educational panels and provide a self-paced tour folks could explore on their own. (After all, we have no beaver dam to see anymore, so it’s not like it will block their view). I figured I’d wait until Vistaprint had a sale and then knock them out.
I didn’t know it would be YESTERDAY!
I started work at 5 am and literally kept going until dinner. I am SO proud of these. And yes, they involve a detailed patchwork of other people’s snagged artwork which I appropriated and pasted together, and I might get scolded but honestly they are so useful, instructive, beautiful and perfect for the job I am very proud of my many copyright crimes. It’s not like they’ll be for sale, and this wonderful artwork was made for educational purposes and this IS educational, right?
The posters will be 22 x 28 foam board hung along the bridge. I think this will make a GRAND docent wall to explain our children’s activity this summer which I’m calling “Working for the ecoSystem”. And I saved 115 dollars for Worth A Dam by doing them yesterday. I’m very certain it will be the finest beaver-benefit educational 6-panel walk in all the land. If I were a brilliant artist of course I would have painted this myself and not stolen anything. But I’m only a critic and connoisseur, not a creator.
I get by.
