About
Dear TreeSpirit book supporters,
A heartfelt and humble THANK YOU to you all! We didn’t make our goal, but you helped us raise an impressive $45,000 in 30 days! -- which is enough to print a smaller, Limited Edition run of TreeSpirit books.
Go to TreeSpiritBook.com to learn how you can STILL get this unique photo book about loving trees, for people who love them! Do it now and you can still get it at the special (lower) supporter's price.
Thank you all again for believing in me, TreeSpirit, and our community of tree and nature lovers and activists.
Jack
May 6, 2017
Jack Gescheidt, Founder
jack@treespiritproject.com
The TreeSpirit Project
TreeSpiritBook.com
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WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT? PLAY THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Time is running out to save the world's forests. We must stop cutting down trees, and plant more of them in order to slow human-caused climate change.
This fine art photo book goes for the gut, and addresses the underlying cause: our disconnection from nature. “We Are Trees” shows over 1,000 environmental activists and tree lovers who put their bodies on the line to wake us all up and re-connect with Mother Nature.
Risking arrest to be naked and vulnerable — like trees themselves — people in the photos create images dramatizing the irreplaceable role of Earth's trees.
THIS CAMPAIGN funds the creation of a 175-page, 11x14" hard-cover coffee table book of over 120 high-resolution "TreeSpirit Project” photographs, made over 12 years by activist photographer, Jack Gescheidt, founder of The TreeSpirit Project.
I'M JACK, in the video below. “TreeSpirit” is my environmental activist art project featuring photographs of humans, naked and vulnerable, to grab attention in order to save trees. A photographer for 25 years, I began TreeSpirit in 2005, inspired by one giant live oak tree in Marin County, CA, that moved me to tears at a painful turning point in my life. The people in this ongoing collection of photographs join me in the trees from all walks of life. None are paid models.
THE BOOK'S PURPOSE: to touch people's hearts, inspire their imagination, and stir the senses with lush, image-driven celebration of the inspiring beauty of trees and forests. All to raise awareness for the critical role of trees and forests and end rampant deforestation. These extraordinary ordinary participants who dare to care for trees remind us that we used to love trees as children and play in and around them before we became busy adults.
SEE DOZENS MORE TreeSpirit PHOTOGRAPHS in the website gallery: http://www.TreeSpiritProject.com/gallery
AN ENVIRONMENTAL MISSION. TreeSpirit's fans and participants feel, as I do, that trees are precious, inspiring, and deserve more protection and care. They are undervalued in modern societies yet critically important in our era of anthropogenic climate change. World forests must be preserved — and expanded. We desperately need more trees and forests to keep doing all that they constantly do for us, ecologically and spiritually. It is in their evolutionary design to sustain and nourish us humans and the plant and animal kingdoms.
THE BOOK'S TEXT will include TreeSpirit’s environmentalist mission. And stories behind the making of many of the activist photos like those featured in the REALITY TV SHOW TRAILER VIDEO at the top of this page ("PLAY" button). Also included: testimonials of participants; the powerful, unexpected experiences people had making the photos. Many men and women in TreeSpirit photos braved being naked in a public setting for the first time, for a cause or for the thrill of it.
YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT for this campaign, and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, will make the book possible. This is just as it should be, because the TreeSpirit images are created with daring and fun-loving volunteers in what I call a collaborative community effort. All of this is to increase appreciation for trees, and our wonder for them.
IF YOU LOVE TREES AND THE NATURAL WORLD, please share this campaign. Tens of thousands of tree and nature lovers, environmentalists, nudists, naturists, naturalists, photography, body and art admirers around the world can enjoy this book and align with TreeSpirit's mission — but will only learn about them with your help. If TreeSpirit's photographs or its mission touches you, join this growing community of people who care deeply for the natural world. Help create this celebratory book starring our dearest, oldest friends, the trees. And the $75 book pledge is lower than the $95 retail cover price upon publication and includes U.S. shipping.
100% PCW* RECYCLED PAPER will be used, of course. Read the story, below, of how this necessity was partly responsible for this crowd-sourced self-publishing campaign. (*Post-Consumer Waste)
IF THIS CAMPAIGN EXCEEDS THE FUNDING GOAL, additional funds will expand the print run, and pay for additional pages, and then promotion, publicity, and a speaking engagements book tour. Future TreeSpirit plans include an expanded website, and of course more photographs for an eventual second book, "The World of TreeSpirit," with new images from Canada, Europe, even Australia and Africa. These are all actions TreeSpirit takes to fulfill its mission.
TreeSpirit BEGAN SIMPLY, with a dramatic turn of events in my own life, including a heart break and subsequent breakdown. This re-awakened my own childhood love for seeking comfort, happiness, and meaning in nature and especially around trees. From this feeling came the first tree photographs with just a few people. People loved the photos and wanted to be in them. And so it grew.
I LEARNED THE PHOTOGRAPHS COULD SAVE TREES & FORESTS by becoming events to draw attention to threatened trees or forests. The first, "Last Stand," was in Berkeley, CA, Memorial Oak Grove, where treesitters lived for two years.
SEE MORE TreeSpirit PHOTOS: http://www.TreeSpiritProject.com/gallery
This led to TreeSpirit’s MISSION: to raise awareness of the crucial role trees play in all our lives. Whether or not you're especially drawn to them, trees, globally, are indispensable to the planet's health. They support life on Earth, creating oxygen, sequestering carbon in our era of human-caused climate change, filter fresh water, cool the planet and are home to 70% of Earth's land animals. And so much more. They are our precious ecological allies.
THIS BOOK BEGAN when a New York City publisher called and generously offered to make it, complete with cash advance. But discussions revealed our vision for the book was not aligned, including its size, it's potential, and its purpose. Crucially, we couldn’t agree that TreeSpirit images — of people adoring trees — should NOT, must not, be printed on anything but 100% recycled or tree-free paper. Not one to hold my tongue on my strongest beliefs, I quoted one my favorite poems, by Kahlil Gibran: “Trees are poems Earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn into paper, That we may record our emptiness.” But that was in Gibran's day years ago; today we can make books, as this book will be made, without harming trees.
Trees are physiological and psychological soothers of our brains and nervous systems. They are inspiration for our souls, and have been for as long as we humans have existed. But humanity, as a collective, too often take trees for granted, and treats them as lifeless objects to be destroyed or exploited for profit.
With your support, this book of heartfelt photographs will help reverse this self-destructive trend of deforestation, and instead celebrate sacred, living trees everywhere around us. We can once again hold them in reverence, adding beauty, joy, and sacredness to our lives. (You don't even have to take your clothes off.)
SEE DOZENS MORE TreeSpirit PHOTOGRAPHS in the website gallery: http://www.TreeSpiritProject.com/gallery
Risks and challenges
THIS IS A LOW-RISK VENTURE. The greatest challenge was making twelve year's worth of original photographs. That's done.
UPON FUNDING, our rough designs go to final book/graphic design. Each page becomes a stand-alone work of art. We have budgeted extra time for Jack's photographer's perfectionist streak to make its mark on this first TreeSpirit book.
PRINTING is next, with 100% PCW (post-consumer waste) paper. We will use a specialty printer who has worked with our chosen paper before.
We've budgeted extra time for unforeseen real-world delays, mishaps, adjustments, etc.
Finally, comes FULFILLMENT — sending your book to you. We anticipate campaign contributors from outside the U.S., as many of them are IN the photographs, so we have again allowed extra time for international delivery.
All this is straight-forward but delays and hiccups occur, hence extra time and funds (after Kickstarter takes its well-earned fees) for our November delivery date. This allows time for you to send out your TreeSpirit books as end-of-year gifts.
Thanks, everyone, for making this vision of tree angradizement possible!
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Funding period
- (30 days)