HVRHS students sign on to Irish artist’s project

FALLS VILLAGE — Irish artist Patrick Dunning brought “The Signature Project” to Housatonic Valley Regional High School Friday, March 23.Downing, who combines biography, storytelling, artistic vision and comedy in his multi-media presentation, is 20 years into the project — a mural 76 feet long and 36 feet high, depicting a stylized sun in the center and the earth, moon, stars, the galaxy and birds around it.What is truly unusual about the project is that the basic building blocks are signatures — thousands of them, in different colors.Dunning showed one of the panels, each with room for 7,000 signatures. At the end of the presentation, students had the chance to add their signatures to the work.Dunning specializes in splashy projects. His “Irish Vision,” an image of half an eye on a large piece of fabric suspended under a bridge in Dublin, was only “complete” for 8 minutes, when the tide rose enough (and the water was sufficiently still) to reflect the bridge hanging, providing the image of a giant, complete eye underneath. The bird and the moon sections of “The Signature Project” are complete. Dunning said that 300,000 people have already contributed their signatures.