Making a MegaMatterhorn

By C.J. Hirschfield

Once upon a time—2006, to be exact—a wonderful artist named Mary Anne Kluth came to work at Children’s Fairyland as our set-restoration painter. (We always have a whimsical set that needs love, attention and brightening.) Who knew that someday Mary Anne would go on to create wildly fantastic and compelling “theme park collages”—and that her new MegaMatterhorn would be featured in our own Oakland Museum of California for a two-year exhibition? We couldn’t be more excited.

The MegaMatterhorn exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California. Photo: Mary Anne Kluth.

I recently asked Mary Anne whether her experience at Fairyland influenced her whole body of work. I was pleased by her answer: “That’s fair to say.”

As a child growing up in Colorado, Mary Anne went on many geologic field trips and camping trips. Even then, though, she says was more interested in “fake” places than real ones.

While at Fairyland, Mary Anne learned not only how to operate a jigsaw and to love working with wood (our Three Pigs set particularly benefited from her talents in this medium), but also how to keep attractions looking fresh and beautiful. Working with large pieces – a screen in our Japanese Tea Garden, a wood representation of a hot air balloon – gave her the confidence to take on bigger projects as an artist.

A painting made by Mary Anne Kluth during our 2016 Drawn Together event.

And in talking with our beloved master puppeteer of many decades, Lewis Mahlmann, she learned about how colors can have psychological meaning.

Mary Anne visited Disneyland to take photos of their beautifully maintained sets, eventually assembling a collection. She told me that theme-park set designs in particular have the power to transport you to another world. Fairyland, she says, “is simulated travel, where you’re down the rabbit hole with Alice.”

When Mary Anne left Fairyland after nine years – earning her MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute during that time – she was awarded a residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, underwritten by the company that manufactures sinks and toilets. Hundreds of artists have benefited from this Arts/Industry residency program since it began in 1974. By the time Mary Anne had completed the residency, the Oakland Museum had accepted her proposal to create a large stage-set installation piece consisting of mixed media with paint and industrial porcelain (the Kohler connection).

Kluth at work on MegaMatterhorn. Photo courtesy of the John Michael Kohler Art Center.

MegaMatterhorn measures 20 by 18.6 by 10 feet and took more than a year and a half to complete; the process included drawing, models, factory work, carpentry and digital printing for the wallpaper backdrop. It features 59 porcelain pieces, each weighing about as much as a dinner plate. The structure that supports them is made of plywood, installed with bolts. Kohler shipped the piece through their own freight operation. “They’ve just been amazing,” says Mary Anne.

Kluth with a "mini Matterhorn," June 2017. Photo: Arts/Industry.

The work’s ambient sound, by Bryan Von Reuter, includes field recordings of Disneyland’s Matterhorn and Kohler’s factory, as well as snippets from the “Bambi” movie  and other Disney pastoral sounds.

MegaMatterhorn’s installation at the museum began on June 11 and took two weeks to complete. You’ll find it in the Art of California gallery, where it will remain on display for two years.

From the artist: “I hope that by making hyperbolic, cartoonish reference to past images of American land forms, the ideological content of our traditional images of landscape can be made more obvious and possibly disarmed.”

Mary Anne, you had us at “theme park collage.”

(Bonus: Read a 2012 article about an event Mary Anne Kluth and Bryan Von Reuter curated at Fairyland!)
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C.J. Hirschfield has served for 16 years as executive director of Children's Fairyland, where she is charged with the overall operation of the nation's oldest storybook theme park.