Author: Todd Smith

Hi! I am an interdisciplinary artist and committed educator. From 2007-2010 I climbed a tree everyday and documented the project with photography, video and writing on this blog. I am revisiting the trees and writing again starting March 2018. Stay tuned. My work considers our collective impact on the urban environment. Projects range from community-based, data-driven projects interpreting bike usage into sound, photography and video series exploring human movement through urban structures and green spaces, and interactive sculptures that vary in their use of found materials, analog technologies, and emerging digital media. I currently teach a variety of 2D, 3D and digital subjects at universities in the Louisville, Kentucky area.
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DAY 4


DAY 4
04.08.07
TREE 4 & 5

During an outing in downtown Louisville where a friend of mine, Will, and I were making a playground of the concrete and brick structures, I climbed up one tree and came down another. In between my up and down I was on the third floor of a parking garage. Due to the peculiar nature of the climb I did not mark my highest point with a strip of orange tape.

4-8-08:  What Will and I were doing that day is called Parkour.  Here is a good description from the American Parkour Website:

Parkour is the art of moving through your environment using only your body and the surroundings to propel yourself. It can include running, jumping, climbing, even crawling, if that is the most suitable movement for the situation. Parkour could be grasped by imagining a race through an obstacle course, the goal is to overcome obstacles quickly and efficiently, without using extraneous movement. Apply this line of thought to an urban environment, or even a run through the woods, and you’re on the right path. Because individual movements could vary so greatly by the situation, it is better to consider Parkour as defined by the intention instead of the movements themselves. If the intention is to get somewhere using the most effective movements with the least loss of momentum, then it could probably be considered Parkour.

I can’t believe I only wrote three sentences about that experience.  I was very excited about that climb.  I love getting onto buildings using trees.

Yesterday I was searching for videos on YouTube.  In the past I have put “tree climb” in the search and come up with some pretty lame videos and a lot of tree climbing with harness and ropes.  Yesterday I found this:

This guy is pretty amazing.  He’s 22 and lives out in Bellingham, WA which is near Seattle.  I used to live there and that is where I got my start in Parkour.  (This guy also practices Parkour.)  I could learn a lot from other climbers and would love to start a regular tree climbing group.  I realize there is only so much I can figure out on my own and just watching this video gave me new ideas.  I went outside right afterwards, but with shoes, and climbed a bunch of trees.  I particularly wanted to try the small tree transfers he was doing.  It worked and I brought myself to a new level of ability and understanding of the strength of small trees.  I also realized that I can learn from watching the monkeys.  Anyone up for a trip to the zoo?
TS