Beautiful Bags Information

August, 2004
from Mark Ahlness, project manager,

The beautiful Earth Day Grocery Bags pictured here represent the efforts of 52 children trying to make a difference. These bags were decorated for Earth Day 2004, and were sent in to the Earth Day Groceries Project as part of the "Send In One Bag" program. There are 21 states represented.

I scanned the bags in the summer of 2004. The images here on the web site are maximized, hopefully, for web viewing at a reasonable download speed - with enough resolution to give the viewer a nice picture of the beautiful artwork that the students created. The original scans were done in tiff and jpeg format, at 300 dpi (10 to 60 MB each). I should also note some of the bags were decorated on both sides, but since we're in a two dimensional mode here, I had to choose just one side to scan and display.

Besides being featured here, future plans include use in a screensaver, on a calendar, and in displays suitable for children's art museums.

Several of the bags are from one school, Arbor Heights Elementary, in Seattle, Washington. When I posted the "Send In One Bag" invitation, I had no idea if anyone would actually send in a bag, as I had set up a pretty involved permission form that had to be included with the bag.... signed by the student, parent, and school representative. So, just to be sure we had enough bags to use in some sort of display, I asked my class of third graders to help me select some of our school's best (they didn't choose any of their own). That's why there are so many from Arbor Heights, and just one from other schools.

Final notes:
1) The deadline for sending in a bag to be included in this collection was June 10, 2004. No more bags are being accepted for this year.
2) These bags, and all representations of them, are the property of the Earth Day Groceries Project.
3) Thanks and congratulations to all those who sent in a bag to be a part of this collection! Your work is beautiful!