Wrapped Up in Feeling

I recently viewed an art exhibit by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Christo is a Bulgarian born artist who dedicated his whole life to wrapping things in the environment with the help of his wife, Jeanne-Claude. Together they financed, planned and carried out many large-scale projects that temporarily changed the environment in some way. The exhibit was of photographs and detailed drafted plans of their works, which they sold to finance their bigger projects like wrapping monuments, building and bridges.
I was having a rough day, feeling let down and betrayed by fellow man. I tend to hide in a corner and lick my wounds in these situations, but had forced myself out to the City Gallery to see if the art would speak to me and change my mood. Obviously, I was not familiar with Christo's work.
The artists' early work consisted of the wrapping of different objects with different materials, and the covering of windows.  I didn't get it at all.

Why would the artist want to do this? What was his deeper meaning? It looked too simple.
The later projects were grander in nature, with walls made of oil barrels, huge inflated packages and wrapped monuments. Was he trying to hide beauty?  Wanting rather to have seen the objects unwrapped, I studied the drawings to catch a glimpse of the shapes and textures that had been covered.
I moved on to the photographs of the "Valley Curtain", the "Wrapped Coast", and the "Running Fence". I started to become more interested. The show included a video about how the artists achieved their goal of staking out a 40 km long veil in California. I was impressed by both the beauty and the sheer accomplishment of such a feat. And they took it all down 14 days later.

Some projects never got off the ground. They were either too big to get permission or 'pie in the sky'.
The artists always claimed there was no deeper meaning to their works, although many have read meanings into them. I was starting to myself.
When I came across some bodies wrapped in clear plastic it unnerved me. They needed to get out!  I wanted to get out. I had seen enough.
Walking home I thought about all those wrapped objects that needed to be unwrapped to be properly appreciated.  I way we respond to art says something about ourselves.
I later did look up the artists to see what else might explain their very original environmental artworks.  Since they were all temporarily displayed and then taken down, there are no existed works.  Christo said, " I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain." 

But he was wrong, his work does remain, in the form of photographs, prints, drawings and the impact they had, not on the environment, but on all who viewed his work.  If you get people to notice, something remains.