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SALINAS — When Trish Sullivan, a Salinas artist and adjunct art instructor at Hartnell College asked her class of 45 students if they knew about Claes Oldenburg’s heroic sculpture, “Hat in Three Stages of Landing,” only one was aware it was an actual art piece. A few knew it was located in Sherwood Park, next to Sherwood Hall and Community Center. Some assumed it was a public playground structure. Most had never heard of it.

And yet, to many members of the Salinas community and an international audience who comes in search of it, the sculpture is a monument, not only to the diversity of cultures and characteristics of the Salinas Valley, but also to what can happen when people come together to honor who they are and what they represent, through public art.

Oldenburg, a Swedish-born American pop artist, world-renowned for turning ordinary objects into monumental sculptures −− think “Spoonbridge and Cherry” in Minneapolis, “Clothespin” in Philadelphia, “Cupid’s Span” in San Francisco, and “Hat in Three Stages of Landing” in Salinas −− died Monday at his SoHo studio and home in Manhattan. He was 93.

More than 45 years ago, local community members, among them Ansel Adams, founded The Arts Council for Monterey County through which to commission monumental public artwork in Salinas. By 1978, they had commissioned Oldenburg and his wife, Dutch-born American sculptor, art historian and critic Coosje van Bruggen, to design and create a sculpture indicative of the culture of Salinas.

“Retired Washington attorney Ted Thau made a proposal to the National Endowment of the Arts for a $100,000 grant for a major sculpture,” said Gary Smith, retired art professor and continuing gallery director, along with colleague Eric Bosler, at Hartnell College. “Ted, along with Richard Rhodes, architect of the Salinas Community Center, and Helen Kingsley, were the triumvirate who came up with and commissioned Claes and Coosje to create the sculpture.”

Oldenburg and van Bruggen came out to Salinas and stayed with Rhodes, who drove them all over Salinas, to give them a sense of the area. The couple went back to New York and, after a few months, returned to town to present their proposal during a ceremony at the Salinas Community Center.

Mayor Dennis Donohue and everyone else who had a stake in the project was there when Oldenburg unveiled a small maquette of three hats, made from Dixie cups and sander disks. Hats.

“The community was not overly receptive,” said Smith. “It was as though a spectator at the rodeo, in a moment of enthusiasm, had flung their hat in the air, and it was landing, in successive stages, on the lawn. Claes had done a hat before, a lithograph of a hat blowing in the wind. He carried a spiral notebook around, with handmade drawings of hats in the wind, wonderful little drawings. He knew of the wind in the Salinas Valley.”

Yet Dixie cups and sander disks were a hard sell. Many people just couldn’t see it. Some said they looked more like a lady’s garden bonnet than a western hat. Others didn’t understand the decision to do a hat.

“Hats in Salinas are part of a lingering culture, “ said Sullivan. “There was a time when everyone wore hats in huge variety − a bowler, cowboy, baseball, sombrero, Asian sun hat − Claes and Coosje wanted to combine cultures by blending the styling of different hats. It is most representative of a cowboy hat, but it has elements of others.”

The brim of the hat, in the shape of a saddle, she says, is a nod to the western tradition of Salinas. The yellow color represents the sun and agriculture, and the holes suggest a colander used to rinse vegetables, a reference to the salad bowl of the world.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen returned to New York where they had the three-piece sculpture manufactured at Lippincott Foundry. In 1982, Representative Leon Panetta spoke at the dedication ceremony and the Hartnell College band played to a large crowd gathered to celebrate the first Claes Oldenburg sculpture installed west of the Mississippi.

Over the years, the great divide continued between those who appreciated, who “got” the sculpture, and those who didn’t. In the meantime, the pop art-meets-fine art-meets-play structure weathered years of neglect and disrespect, succumbing to graffiti, carvings, and a crack that threatened the stability of the structure.

The disregard for his work hurt Oldenburg more than the disrepair.

In 2005, Trish Sullivan, determined to instill awareness and appreciation for the Hat sculpture, introduced an art project to her students at Everett Alvarez High. Based on the design of the sculpture, students made a soft sculpture of giant Styrofoam hats, painted yellow and spraypainted with graffiti to represent the vandalism inflicted on Oldenburg’s art.

Students marched with their hats in the annual Kiddie Kapers Parade and brought them to First Night Monterey and the First Fridays Art Walk. A year later, the students and their Styrofoam hats attended the rededication of the “Hat in Three Stages of Landing.”

In 2006, then-Mayor Dennis Donohue had launched a restoration process for the sculpture, convening a committee, including Paulette Lynch, executive director of the Arts Council for Monterey County, Trish Sullivan, and Gary Smith, among others. After Coosje van Bruggen lost her battle with breast cancer in 2009 at 66, the committee postponed the project, in deference to Oldenburg, until 2010.

While visiting Oldenburg at his SoHo studio during a business trip to New York City, Donohue developed a rapport with the artist and a whole new level of appreciation for his Pop Art, particularly, “Hat in Three Stages of Landing.” Oldenburg reportedly invested $44,000 from his private foundation into the restoration project, and accelerated its completion.

Oldenburg, who attended the rededication of his restored sculpture, was enamored with the fact that young people had been inspired by his artwork to create their own unique take on it. He also appreciated that people of all ages were interacting with his work and that interest in it had been reignited.

“I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Oldenburg when he returned to Salinas for the rehabilitation of his sculpture,” said Salinas Mayor Kimbley Craig. “He cared so deeply about the artwork − the color, the location, the meaning − because it was the first project he and his wife, Coosje had worked on together.”

“Hat in Three Stages of Landing” is a great, great story and something Salinas and Monterey County should be proud of, says Gary Smith. “It is a major work, and one of the great collaborations of the 20th century. Claes was really an amazing man, the last of the great pop artists. We will miss him.”

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