me arts ed

A Friend Passes On

Several years ago there was an education director at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland who greeted my 8th graders with something I’ve repeated over and over.  “When you visit the museum think of it as visiting friends. Each time you come, you will meet new friends and some of your old friends will be here to visit with again.”

It doesn’t matter which museum I visit, whether in Maine, out of state or in another country, I think of that story. This connection or friendship happens not only with art work but also with artists through reading and learning about their lives.

And some of my “old friends” include Christo and Jean-Claude. So when I learned that Jean-Claude’s passed away on November 18th, at the age of 74 I felt sad. We go back several years!

I am sure many of you are familiar with collaborations the husband and wife teamed up to create. In the early 1970s they hung a 400-yard nylon curtain across a Colorado Valley. In 1976, they built a 24 mile-long “Running Fence”, fabric construction that appeared to flow across California hillsides until it disappeared into the sea. Their works of art were temporary and each created without a penny from corporations or the government.

One of their most well known is the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and of course the most recent in New York City was the chraffron material that made 7,500 gates in Central Park. How many of you visited that exhibit during February vacation in 2005? I was there with my younger son and a friend on his first trip to New York at the age of 14.

Later on that year I teamed up with colleague and art teacher Anne Kofler and we “wrapped” our school in Union in celebration of Christo and Jean-Claude’s visit to Maine. They spoke at the Merrill Auditorium in November 2005. Did any of you attend that presentation?

Before our visit Anne and I had our K-8 students from Union Elementary and D.R. Gaul Middle School create artwork on 3″x12″ white drawing paper using black sharpies. They started with their names in the center and went around and around with contour lines. Every student and staff member participated with the idea that everyone has an important part in the school community (and world) and that each of our parts are important to the whole. Without everyone doing their part there is a hole.

We exhibited them touching and lining the walls up and down the steps, wrapping the entire building. We contacted Christo and Jean-Claude letting them know of our work and invited them to school while in Maine. Sadly, they weren’t feeling well but Jean-Claude called the school to let us know they had received our invitation and with regrets could not visit.

Anne and I made a book to illustrate what we had created at school and the impact it had on our students. We attended the presentation that night and hopped into the line where attendees were having their posters signed by the artists. We didn’t have anything for them to sign but we did present the book to them. It was a special night to remember.
Thanks to Anne for sharing her photographs and taking me down memory lane. Please share your Christo and Jean-Claude stories by clicking on the “comments” below.