Christo American-Bulgarian, 1935-2020

The project aimed to reveal and celebrate the beauty of the California landscape and topography, and to draw the connection between rural and urban life. Christo referred to it as a ribbon of light which guided the contour of the land.
The project started near Cotati and ran west down through the town of Valley Ford and out to the ocean near Bodega Bay.

Running Fence consisted of 42 months of collaborative efforts, the ranchers’ participation, eighteen public hearings, three sessions at the Superior Courts of California, the drafting of a 450-page Environmental Impact Report and the temporary use of the hills, the sky and the ocean.

It was completed on September 10, 1976 and lasted for two weeks. It was 18 feet high and 24.5 miles long extending east-west near 101 on the private properties of 59 ranchers, following the rolling hills and dropping down to the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay.

All expenses for the temporary work of art were paid by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through the sale of studies, preparatory drawings and collages, scale models and original lithographs. The artists did not accept sponsorship of any kind.

The production of his works became so complex that he began to prepare them with sketches and drawings, which enabled him to visualize his ideas in advance. Each drawing was an independent work of art in its own right, but at the same time the drawings did not become pure ends in themselves. They fulfilled a specific function within the work process. In this sense, it is doubtless wrong to speak of "sketches" in relation to Christo's works. Rather, these were technical drawings: on a two-dimensional path, so to speak, the desired end-product took on its "definitive" form, a template from which the work could then be realized as a craft object.

Running Fence was made of 200,000 square meters (2.15 million square feet) of heavy woven white nylon fabric, hung from a steel cable strung between 2,050 steel poles (each 6.4 meters/21 feet long, 8.9 centimeters/3.5 inches in diameter) embedded 91 centimeters (3 feet) into the ground, using no concrete and braced laterally with guy wires (145 kilometers/90 miles of steel cable) and 14,000 earth anchors. The top and bottom edges of the 2,050 fabric panels were secured to the upper and lower cables by 350,000 hooks.

All parts of Running Fence's structure were designed for complete removal and no visible evidence of Running Fence remains on the hills of Sonoma and Marin Counties.

As it had been agreed with the ranchers and with county, state and federal agencies, the removal of Running Fence started 14 days after its completion and all materials were given to the ranchers.

Running Fence crossed fourteen roads and the town of Valley Ford, leaving passage for cars, cattle and wildlife. It was designed to be viewed by following 64 kilometers (40 miles) of public roads, in Sonoma and Marin Counties.