Christo’s Umbrellas Rain Millions on Area : Arts: A study shows that the Tejon Pass exhibit created a ‘ripple effect’ with an impact of $34.3 million on two counties.

Whether Christo’s giant yellow umbrellas were art or hype may be an endless argument, but according to a rough analysis for a state agency, they pumped millions of dollars into the economies of Los Angeles and Kern counties.

The 17-day exhibit by the environmental artist brought $19.1 million--a figure based primarily on Christo’s financial records--to the two counties, creating a “ripple effect” with an impact of $34.3 million on their economies, said a study obtained by The Times on Tuesday from the California Arts Council.

The council, a state agency, paid $3,000 for the report by the Torrance-based Harrison Price economic consulting firm, which specializes in studies of art-related finances and recently did similar studies for the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Southwest Museum.

“This is not an exact science, by any means,” said consultant Jill Bensley, who wrote the report for Harrison Price. “We are mostly not using real figures here. We use factors, multipliers. But compared to other arts economic impact studies, I think we have been conservative.”

Christo, a New York-based international art figure, has said he spent at least $26 million of his money to create the controversial umbrellas project, which was praised by his admirers and scoffed at by some critics. Christo--who previously wrapped islands in fabric and set up a 24-mile fence of white nylon sheeting--earns money, in turn, by selling plans, sketches and paintings of his works for hefty fees.

Last year, he built and erected 1,760 yellow umbrellas, each nearly 20 feet high, along a 19-mile stretch of Tejon Pass, straddling the Kern County border about 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Simultaneously, he put up 1,340 similar blue umbrellas in Japan.

The spectacle drew about 1 million viewers from around the world to the sparsely populated Tejon Pass area, according to Caltrans.

The project opened on Oct. 9 and closed Oct. 26, three days earlier than planned, because a Ventura woman sightseer was killed by one of the 488-pound umbrellas when it blew over in a storm in the Tejon Pass. A Japanese worker was then killed dismantling the exhibit there, when his crane came too close to a high-voltage wire.

Bensley said she started with figures obtained from the organization headed by Christo, which gave the local payroll for the project as about $1.8 million, with an additional $9.5 million spent in the area on materials and supplies. Using figures provided by several businesses, including souvenir stands established for the event, she estimated visitor spending at $6.5 million and Christo employee spending locally at $1.3 million.

She figured sales and income taxes derived from the project at about $1.25 million.

The rest of the economic impact came from the estimated ripple effect, which “refers to all the economic effects that are generated by income, spending and new business activity,” Bensley said.

“It’s not just the dollar that a visitor to the umbrellas spends at a Wendy’s for a hamburger,” she said.

“The owner of the stand had to put on extra workers and pay them overtime to serve all the extra people up there, and that has an impact. The worker takes the money he earns and uses it to buy shoes for his child. And so on.”

“This study shows that there is a potential to use the arts as a resource for tourism in rural areas,” said Joanne Kozberg, executive director of the California Arts Council.