I went to mock and stayed to pray
MARIE AND PETER DUFFY
I said at the time, ”I went to mock and stayed to pray.” I had not expected it to be so powerful.
Peter Duffy was 10 years old when his mother Marie took him and his sister to visit Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast:
It was the era of the ”Sunday drive”. On that Sunday we picked up my grandmother and went out to Watson’s Bay for lunch at Doyles, then we drove out to Little Bay.
I was surprised at how the cloth was tied to the cliff and rocks. It was very different to anything I had ever seen before, although I was only 10 years old!
I have managed to find the few photos that I took at the time.
Marie Duffy was unsure of what she would find at Little Bay:
[We] all came together from Turramurra in a Mini Minor to view the wrap-up because it was something of interest in Sydney—a curio—not because I was especially interested in art.
I said at the time, ”I went to mock and stayed to pray.” I had not expected it to be so powerful.
To my amazement, seeing the wrap-up was a profoundly moving experience, and I told as many people as I could. Both my children remember it well, and my son has been interested in Christo ever since.
