“You’re back, Charlie Brown!”

“We missed you, Charlie Brown!”

The students attending summer classes at the Museum were ecstatic when they saw the beautifully restored statue under the arbor at the entrance. Many of these students had been coming to one summer class or event since June, and they had noticed something was missing. We heard, “What happened to Charlie Brown?”  and “Is Charlie Brown coming back?” many times.

Visitors, who may not have realized there had been this vacancy, were also delighted to be greeted by the freshly painted and beautiful Charlie Brown.

 

I wonder how many readers of this blog know about the 5-summer-long PEANUTS ON PARADE event that was held in St. Paul, Minnesota, Sparky’s hometown.

In addition to being a tribute to Charles Schulz from his hometown, PEANUTS ON PARADE was also a project to raise funds to place permanent bronze sculptures of the Peanuts characters in public spaces in downtown St. Paul. The program featured a different character statue each year, designed and painted by individual artists and placed around town for several months until they were auctioned off at the end of the summer.

To learn more about PEANUTS ON PARADE, click here.

“This is one of the best events our company has been a part of,” said Hart Johnson, whose company, Tivoli Too, created the statues.

 

During the St. Paul auctions, the Charles M. Schulz Museum bought three of the original statues because they filled a role here.

This statue matched where we were in constructing the Museum, so it seemed like a whimsical piece of art for our courtyard.

 

The doghouse greets people at the entrance doors, where guests stop for their first “photo op” before coming inside.  The many iconic images on the doghouse make it perfect for ‘show and tell,’ and a puzzle in the Museum’s Family Guide.

 

And Linus with this wonderful puzzle on the front of his shirt (answers on the back) is featured in our Family Guide, too.

 

When the five-year St. Paul event ended, Craig Schulz promoted a similar program with the City of Santa Rosa, but only for three years. Charlie Brown was the first statue in that program, and we thought it would be wonderful to have Charlie Brown at the Schulz Museum standing under the arbor to greet visitors. We gave the task to Pam Drucker, one of the Studio artists.

This booklet showcased all the different Charlie Brown statues in the Santa Rosa Auction.

 

I said, “This is Charlie Brown’s Museum,” and Pam and I discussed Charlie Brown thinking about the Museum, which would be portrayed by the Museum plans painted on his head.  We also talked about using the symbols of the easel and Sparky’s chair. Lastly, Charlie Brown would be holding two tickets as an inviting gesture. 

Here is a maquette of the original Charlie Brown, along with the figures from the base, which were taken from the exhibit in the Biographical Gallery of the characters Sparky had painted on a wall in his daughter Meredith’s bedroom in Colorado Springs in the early 1950s. You can see the Museum layout on Charlie Brown’s head, and Sparky’s drawing board and chair on his shirt.

The statue truly represented the Museum.

 

Fast forward almost twenty years, and one of our Board members suggested that the Museum symbolism painted on Charlie Brown might be lost on visitors today, and perhaps it would be better to be greeted by the classic character they know in his yellow shirt with the black zigzag.

We are always open to new ideas, so the original artist, Pam, and her fellow Studio staff artists, Caitlin Leonard and Tifanee Smith, proceeded to revamp Charlie Brown. First, by power washing and sanding the sculpture.  Next, they painted it with a white primer to ensure the lighter and brighter colors look clean and fresh.

After Charlie Brown was fully painted, Toma Day, the Museum’s facilities manager, had a professional automotive UV coating applied. The tickets in Charlie Brown’s hand were typeset and printed with a permanent sticky backing to adhere to them to his hand.

 

So here he is, back at his job.

 

The second year in Santa Rosa, we created Woodstock sitting in his nest—a sculpture I particularly like—and this one, created by former museum director Karen Johnson and called “Woodstock’s Morning Routine,” is particularly clever and adorable. I never get tired of seeing in the Museum lobby.

So though the Museum stays the same, it is never static, we are always upgrading—improving—changing…so visitors see new exhibitions; new comic strips; and a brand new Charlie Brown!

We all know the phrase, “What a piece of work is a man!” And now, we can say, “What a piece of work, Charlie Brown!”

—Jean Schulz