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Tiny takeoff on Christo proves gateway to glory

By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | February 25, 2005

He is on his way to a reception hosted by the mayor. His lunch at a Cambridge restaurant was free, after the man behind the counter recognized him. And his phone rings constantly with people calling to congratulate him.

''It's just so amazing that I know this man," gushed a co-worker at his office yesterday.

Geoff Hargadon -- Hargo, now that he's a star -- is the creator of The Somerville Gates, a micro sendup of the saffron extravaganza now in New York's Central Park. And he has become almost preposterously famous.

After he posted photos on his website of his 13-gate installation -- made from stuff he picked up at Home Depot that he glued together and painted orange -- Hargadon received more than 4 million hits, so many that he had to take it down yesterday because his Internet service was charging him for every visit. He owes thousands, he says.

Museums across the country are after him. Manhattan's Pratt Institute wants a Somerville Gate for its permanent collection. Ditto, the Browne Popular Culture Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio; the Portland Art Museum in Oregon; and Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. Someone from Tufts University invited him to display the work in a juried art show. ''It's been so overwhelming," said Hargadon, a vice president of investments at UBS Financial Services in Boston. ''I'm not sleeping. I wake up worrying about it."

Still, he hasn't shied from the spotlight. The story of The Somerville Gates has appeared in publications from Germany to Taipei, and he has given interviews to MSNBC and El Colombiano, a newspaper in Medellin, Colombia.

The Somerville Gates came into being one night while Hargadon and his wife watched the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on television, discussing the hype around Christo and Jeanne-Claude's $20 million-plus Gates in Central Park. They ran to the store, plunked down a total of $3.50 for supplies, and spent the evening gluing and painting. The photos they took depicted the same 13 gates arranged in settings around their Somerville loft, usually marking paths walked by his cat, Edie.

Ever since, his e-mail in-box has been crammed with notes from admirers saying they nearly spilled coffee on their keyboards when they saw the photos.

''It touched people on a whole variety of levels," said Hargadon, reclining in his 28th floor office yesterday, as he prepared to set up his Gates on an office coffee table before lunch. ''There were the cat people, the Somerville people, the art people."

Some of his favorite e-mails are taped to his office door.

''At last an artist for our times who spans not only space-time continuums but the archaic human-animal divide and presents a postmodern perspective interrogated by the feline," one fan wrote.

Another, who signed his e-mail Marcus Cade, authored haiku:

''tiny orange gates
kitty peregrination
I was happy once"

And then there were cheers for his city. ''Having grown up in Somerville and seeing it through its awkward years -- i.e.: 'The All-American City' and 'Slum-erville' -- I am finally able to dig my old cheerleading jacket out of mothballs and proudly tell the world that, yes, I am a product of THAT Somerville, the one with 'The Gates.' I feel reborn."

Hargadon, the man, not the star, is a low-key guy, unlike the Christo of Manhattan's The Gates. A former standout soccer player at Harvard University, Hargadon lives with his Jeanne-Claude, wife Patricia LaValley, and Edie in a Somerville loft. LaValley's hair these days is dappled with saffron highlights.

''I prefer to call it 'Penny,' " she explained. ''The color of pennies."

He has two daughters, ages 18 and 22, and Hargadon said the closest he ever came to fame before this was having an article he wrote about crosswalks published in the Beacon Hill Times.

Hargadon has dabbled in art for years as a hobby, exhibiting occasionally in the South End. ''Balance" was an installation of some 600 ATM receipts. A friend who purchased ''Balance" for $150 at a benefit art auction called this week to talk about how grateful he is, now that Hargadon's a big name, to own one of his pieces.

''He said he's glad he got in on the ground floor," Hargadon said.

Diminutive though they may be, Hargadon's gates are inspiring serious criticism. His boss at UBS compared The Somerville Gates to the work of Marcel Duchamp, one of whose pieces is a urinal.

''It's the question of 'What is art? What is acceptable?"' said Donald R. Stanton, a UBS senior vice president who is a former board member of the Museum of Fine Arts and a current trustee of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

Hargadon has built up something of a following at the financial company. His assistant, who fielded dozens of calls from co-workers during the past week wondering where they can catch Hargadon next, has dubbed him ''our resident rock star."

As he contemplates his next artistic endeavor, Hargadon says fans should not expect ''The Somerville Umbrellas" made with cocktail garnishes or ''The Surrounded Island" in a kitty litter box. (Christo and Jeanne-Claude unfurled 3,100 umbrellas in Japan and California to create ''The Umbrellas" and wrapped fabric around islands in Florida to create ''Surrounded Islands.") ''It would be unfortunate for me to be pigeon-holed as Christo's satirist," Hargadon said. ''I'll probably do something else with ATM receipts."

In the office of Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone yesterday afternoon in Somerville, Hargadon greeted about two dozen admirers, who munched on orange foodstuffs, including Cheetos, cheddar cheese, and cantaloupe.

The mayor made Feb. 24, 2005, Hargo Day in the city of Somerville, presenting Hargadon with an official declaration.

''Hargo Day was established to recognize the importance of thrift, ingenuity, and artistic parity," Curtatone read from the declaration. ''Hargo Day was established to also recognize the human capacity for appreciation, wonder, and awe that can be achieved when small plastic things are arranged in a certain order near and around a cat."

The mayor also praised Hargadon's all-Somerville approach: He purchased his materials at a Somerville Home Depot store, used Somerville labor (his own and his wife's) and displayed the work on Somerville-tax-paying property (his house).

''What a big day for the city of Somerville," the mayor effused, shaking Hargadon's hand vigorously amid orange balloons.

The question asked by nearly everyone in the room was, Have you seen the Other Gates? Then, What did you think?

''I think they're fantastic!" his rote response went. He and his wife drove down to Manhattan Saturday.

''You know what really amazed me about it? It was just such an obsessive project."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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