Art

Artist Christo finances his projects by selling design drawings like this one, a preparatory sketch for the Over the River project on Colorado's Arkansas River.

Bighorn Sheep Canyon in Colorado holds a chuckling ribbon of water, with a highway running alongside. Artist Christo wants to drape sections of it — almost 6 miles' worth — with long, billowing panels of silvery fabric.

"The silver-color fabric panel will absorb the color," he says. "In the morning, it will become rosy, in the middle of the day, platinum, and [during] the sunset, the fabric will become golden."

Christo and his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, are famous for works measured in miles: pathways of flapping, flame-colored gates in Central Park, thousands of umbrellas scattered along the coasts of California and Japan. For many locals, however, Christo's artistic vision for the Arkansas River feels more like a nightmare.