Janelle McKellar

“It is an honor to recycle the Running Fence panels into a tangible piece of art,” says Janelle McKellar. “People will then appreciate Christo’s work for years to come.”  McKellar is the youngest artist working with RunningFence-recycled, and daughter of Curator Dianne Smith. Her professional art career began at age seven when she peddled her paintings and pressed flower artworks for ten cents apiece to indulgent neighbors.

As a child she was given stock in a fledgling start-up company her uncle worked for called Cisco Systems. By the time she was a teenager, the stock had grown into an investment of real value, and she sold it to help purchase the Running Fence panels. McKellar has a forty percent share ownership of RunningFence-recycled, LLC.

Janelle McKellar is also a 2007 graduate from the prestigious Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Her focus is film, but she is proficient in almost all the creative arts, including dance, drawing and textiles. Her first artwork for RunningFence-recycled, Grommet Medley, was a collaborative effort with the curator. The grommet edges of two partial panels were cut into long ribbons and then hand-sewn into an eye-catching rectangular jumble. Grommet Medley can be displayed where it is viewed from both sides, and is truly a museum piece.