The Grateful Hearts Project — 2018 — getting underway now...
Some of the participants in the Grateful Hearts Project, at our Painting Days at the Calistoga Art Center
With the power of art, The Grateful Heart Project will enable Calistogans to honor and commemorate the first responders, organizations, and individuals who fought the 2017 Tubbs Wildfire, protected our town, welcomed and aided our evacuees and their animals, and assisted the people who suffered losses as a result of the fire.
We are creating art with heart-shaped, designs involving as many Calistogans in the process as possible, and we will present framed paintings honoring organizations and individuals for their work in honor of what they have done for us, as an expression of our gratitude. We're doing this with big thanks to Arts Council Napa Valley and the Hewlett Foundation for their support!
We are creating art with heart-shaped, designs involving as many Calistogans in the process as possible, and we will present framed paintings honoring organizations and individuals for their work in honor of what they have done for us, as an expression of our gratitude. We're doing this with big thanks to Arts Council Napa Valley and the Hewlett Foundation for their support!
Hearts Across the Valley — 2017 — The Process of Creation
A lot of work goes into the creation of art! Here are some of the people and steps in the process of creation of the Tree Heart Art installations for Calistoga.
Heart Makers creating Heart Art at the Calistoga Art Center, in January 2017.
The Ingalls family, making Heart Art after Christmas dinner, December 2016.
Heart Art — the creative process underway at the Calistoga Art Center
Heart Makers at the second Make-a-Heart Day in January 2017, at the Calistoga Art Center.
More photos coming of the making of Heart Art in Calistoga and St. Helena in 2017 coming.... (page under construction)
Notes from Karen about Hearts Across the Valley:
Hearts Across the Valley began as a vision of a series of installations, the first of which came into being in 2017. It is a continuing project. What follows is Karen's original vision of the project, along with her sketches:
Calistoga
Each art installation along a three-block section of Calistoga's main street, Lincoln Avenue, will be placed in trees.... These will be smaller and more intimate than the roadside installations — just the right size to draw in and enchant people strolling by on the sidewalk — and include heart shapes, some with messages of love, kindness, and compassion.
Hearts Across the Valley began as a vision of a series of installations, the first of which came into being in 2017. It is a continuing project. What follows is Karen's original vision of the project, along with her sketches:
Calistoga
Each art installation along a three-block section of Calistoga's main street, Lincoln Avenue, will be placed in trees.... These will be smaller and more intimate than the roadside installations — just the right size to draw in and enchant people strolling by on the sidewalk — and include heart shapes, some with messages of love, kindness, and compassion.
Tree Art Installation designs. Drawing © 2016 Karen Lynn Ingalls
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Calistoga City Hall, with Heart Art. Drawing © 2017 Karen Lynn Ingalls
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My designs for Calistoga also included placing hearts on City Hall (which was postponed, but should be going up before Valentine's Day in 2019); and, for Arts in April, hearts on the streets leading to the fairgrounds for ENGAGE Art Fair — we we didn't get the permit in time, but, who knows? Maybe next year...?
Hearts on Washington Street in Calistoga, for Napa Valley's Arts in April, leading to ENGAGE Art Fair. Drawing © 2017 Karen Lynn Ingalls
The drawings below were my initial concept sketches. Although some of the plans evolved later, to suit the particulars of each location, they still form the essence of some of the installation ideas.
Initial design concept sketches for installations in Calistoga, on trees, overhang support posts, City Hall, and roadside fences. Drawings © 2016 Karen Lynn Ingalls
As Highway 29 stretches south from Calistoga to Napa, there are many places where I envision art installations of hearts. This is an ongoing project, so, though it hasn't happened yet, it's still part of the vision.... There are some variations for each roadside installation, depending on the location, proximity of the fence to the road, and the kind of fencepost and method of attaching the heart images to it.
Initial design concept sketches for installations on roadside fences, the Napa Valley Sign, Rutherford Train Station, trees, and mobile sculptures for indoors or out. Drawings © 2016 Karen Lynn Ingalls
Although the highway-side art installations won't be uninterrupted for miles, as was Christo's Running Fence, in Sonoma County in 1976, the Running Fence definitely provides inspiration for the project.
Hearts Across the Valley art installation, extending on the north side of the Napa Valley sign on Hwy. 29, south of Calistoga. Drawing © 2017 Karen Lynn Ingalls
The valley-wide vision of Hearts Across The Valley is that art installations of hearts stretch along the highways in as many places as is possible. Ideally, I'll be able to put up installations along the Silverado Trail too, but my plan is to start on Highway 29, at the Napa Valley Vintners' Napa Valley Sign south of Calistoga.
Hearts Across the Valley art installation, stretching to the south of the Napa Valley sign on Hwy. 29, south of Calistoga. Drawing © 2017 Karen Lynn Ingalls
The installation will extend both north and south of the sign, and across the road as well.
"A Garden of Hearts," art installation for entrance to St. Helena Elementary School Auditorium, to be created by students with Kari Sue Carson-Martin, Program Director of St. Helena Boys and Girls Club. Drawing © 2017 Karen Lynn Ingalls
In St. Helena, hearts and heart-making became a part of the music program at St. Helena Elementary School. Their spring concerts in 2017 were centered around the theme of love, kindness, and friendship; and visual installations of the hearts graced the entrance to the auditorium and the walls of the auditorium itself. Students created the Garden of Hearts at the St. Helena Boys and Girls Club, working with Boys and Girls Club Art Director Kari Martin, and each student, faculty, and staff member signed a blossom heart that was became a part of garlands stretching across three arches leading up to the auditorium. In addition, students worked together to create big heart collage artwork that teachers made into posters, each with the word for Love in a different language — those posters graced the walls of the auditorium for the spring concerts, and remained up for the rest of the school year.
In the 2017-18 school year, the music program's theme became "Viva la Musica!" and dancing musical notes were added to the Garden of Hearts and the Blossom Heart Garlands, which remain at the school and are much beloved.
In the 2017-18 school year, the music program's theme became "Viva la Musica!" and dancing musical notes were added to the Garden of Hearts and the Blossom Heart Garlands, which remain at the school and are much beloved.
Karen's notes on the creation of the project, written in 2017...
What will these Art Hearts look like?
Besides the question of the design of each installation, there's the question of what the hearts themselves will look like. In town, they'll be seen by passers-by walking along the sidewalk, and each individual heart can be beautiful and complex in ways a roadside installation can't. They will include original art paper designs, digitally altered designs, some with inspirational quotations and messages of love and compassion, and some handmade designs created by participants — children, townspeople, friends, supporters, and community members.
Besides the question of the design of each installation, there's the question of what the hearts themselves will look like. In town, they'll be seen by passers-by walking along the sidewalk, and each individual heart can be beautiful and complex in ways a roadside installation can't. They will include original art paper designs, digitally altered designs, some with inspirational quotations and messages of love and compassion, and some handmade designs created by participants — children, townspeople, friends, supporters, and community members.
The work behind all of this....
I've been sketching out my ideas, researching materials and methods, gathering materials for my initial prototypes, priming wooden shapes, creating prototypes, and testing prototypes in winter weather to see how they'll hold up. I've made fifty-one heart sculpture armatures, in different sizes, and used both original and digital art techniques to create art papers and hearts. I've made heart stencils in different shapes and sizes, and drawn different arrangements and layouts of them on the page. I've created painted papers, using acrylic painting, collage, and relief printing, and then I've redesigned many versions of each of them digitally, to create the hearts from. I've made lots and lots of versions of designs and paintings, and watched them evolve as my ideas grew.
I've been sketching out my ideas, researching materials and methods, gathering materials for my initial prototypes, priming wooden shapes, creating prototypes, and testing prototypes in winter weather to see how they'll hold up. I've made fifty-one heart sculpture armatures, in different sizes, and used both original and digital art techniques to create art papers and hearts. I've made heart stencils in different shapes and sizes, and drawn different arrangements and layouts of them on the page. I've created painted papers, using acrylic painting, collage, and relief printing, and then I've redesigned many versions of each of them digitally, to create the hearts from. I've made lots and lots of versions of designs and paintings, and watched them evolve as my ideas grew.
I've rounded up quotations about love, kindness, and compassion, and translated "We love you" into every language that Google translates (including English, that's 103, by the way). I've measured the width of trees and overhang support posts along Lincoln Avenue, Calistoga's main street, and counted just how many there are of each. I've scouted highway locations, brainstormed possibilities, counted the number of fenceposts, and measured the post's heights and distances from each other.
I've also introduced this to a number of people and organizations, throughout the valley — in Calistoga, St. Helena, Rutherford, and Yountville, and Napa, including Calistoga's City Council — and am creating activities for community members of all ages and skill levels to be able to participate in it, so that participants are able to, visually, at least in some small way, share their message of love to the world. My first participating heart-makers have been my family, making their own hearts after opening our Christmas gifts. The third heart-making session is scheduled for the end of January, and slowly, surely, we're going to spread love, and art, across Napa Valley.
As I refine the designs for each location, settling on the types, amounts, and costs of materials needed, I'm developing budgets for each location. And now I'm creating this website and its corresponding Facebook page, which will track how it all evolves.
As I refine the designs for each location, settling on the types, amounts, and costs of materials needed, I'm developing budgets for each location. And now I'm creating this website and its corresponding Facebook page, which will track how it all evolves.
I have enormous, renewed respect for Christo, the complexity of his installations, and the behind-the-scenes work needed to create them. I've thought frequently of the Running Fence, which went up forty years ago. He hired art students from Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University to work on it, including friends and fellow students of mine — I wasn't one of them, because I was traveling that summer and didn't know if I'd be back in time. But I remember its awe-inspiring beauty — and fondly hope that these heart installations may touch the hearts of the people who see them in a similar way. Art has the power to move us, beyond words, beyond logic, beyond our everyday expectations. My hope is that it will also inspire us to spread love across this valley — and beyond.