It’s Raining, so Umbrellas Can’t Open Yet : Art: Unfurling of Christo’s project is delayed indefinitely because of a storm in Japan. The American half of the exhibit, in Tejon Pass, will also remain folded up.

The environmental artist Christo, poised to unveil at dawn today his gigantic work featuring 3,100 umbrellas at sites in Japan and the Tejon Pass, has postponed it indefinitely because of heavy rains at the Japan site.

“I do not feel any pleasure in opening my umbrellas in the present miserable weather” in the Ibaraki Prefecture, 75 miles north of Tokyo, Christo said in a statement issued Monday night in Japan, which is 16 hours ahead of Los Angeles time.

Weather reports indicated that storms, caused in part by an offshore typhoon, would continue there intermittently until Thursday night. But Christo needs only a few hours break in the rain to get the Japan segment, consisting of 1,340 blue umbrellas, open, according to Augie Huber, general contractor of the project.

“I just talked to Christo and he said that at the moment it is overcast but not raining at the site,” Huber said.

The umbrellas, each of which stands almost 20 feet tall and weighs 488 pounds, can easily weather the storm. A prototype was tested under winds up to 65 m.p.h. But Christo wants to open the umbrellas in the sunlight so that the bright fabric he has chosen for the canopies will look luminescent.

Safety is also an issue.

“Ninety of the umbrellas are based right in the Sato River,” Huber said. “It is not worth the risk of opening them if the river is too high. It might be too dangerous.”

Huber said Christo is checking the river and local reports and will make a decision early today, Los Angeles time, about trying for a Wednesday opening.

Whenever the Japan segment does open, the 1,760 yellow umbrellas in the United States site, which is in the Tejon Pass along Interstate 5 about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, will open about 16 hours later to allow Christo to fly over.

Last week, the artist explained to 430 workers at the local site why he would open the exhibition only when conditions were right on both continents.

“This project is about comparison” between the landscapes and societies in Japan and the United States, he told them.

Because of the delay, up to 30% of the workers, who had come from all over the United States to help install the umbrellas, might have to leave the area before the opening, according to U.S. project director Thomas Golden.

“I’m heartbroken, just sick,” said Joann Dreben, drowning her sorrows in a lemonade at the Okie Girl restaurant in Frazier Park.

Dreben owns an art gallery in San Diego and has to return because of business appointments.

“I know I can come back to see the exhibit, but I wanted to see them open, not just drive up as a tourist,” she said.

The exhibition, officially titled “The Umbrellas: Joint Project for Japan and U.S.A.,” will be up for its scheduled three weeks, no matter when it finally opens, Golden said.

The Christo organization sent the workers out in teams Monday to pick up trash along the interstate.

“It creates goodwill,’ Golden said.

And today for them is a fun day, with the Christo organization providing buses to take them to Venice Beach or to museums in Bakersfield.

By Monday afternoon, more than twice as many had signed up for the beach as for the museums.