This cover solves an age-old conundrum: What do you do with gum wrapper chains anyway? Lauretta is very pleased to have played a part in solving this mystery - it may be one of her most significant contributions to mankind. At the least, it has broken her of the compulsion to make gum wrapper chains. (Note: Lauretta was the curator of the UCM 2000 special exhibit for the opening of the Umbrella Cover Museum's new home at 62-B Island Avenue, Peaks Island, Maine. She is currently on the Advisory Board of the Museum.)

Biography: Lauretta E. Grau began her professional career as an electron-microscopist, but after ten years spent in darkrooms and killing rodents, she decided to seek a profession that provided more immediate gratification than did medical research. She naively returned to school to get her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. This experience taught her that it is easier to extinguish rooting behavior in pigs than to help people change maladaptive lifestyles. While in training, Lauretta serendipitously fell into a job in HIV research at the National Institute on Mental Health and was happy to return to research. She joined the Yale School of Medicine when her husband left academia for private industry. She researches HIV prevention among injection drug users, has been an avid quilter for 20 years, and is the proud albeit harried mother of Harold and Marian.

My umbrella cover is made from bullet- proof 2000 diener kevlar. I obtained the cloth when I was a rigger in the dismantling of the US Plush mill in Pawtucket Rhode Island in 1999. The adornment came from the dismantling of the gemcraft jewelry company in Providence. The loss of manufacturing in the U.S. is clearly seen in the work. As most umbrella covers are made in foreign lands, this piece is a work solely of U.S. origin. All materials were scavenged from leftovers of the Industrial Revolution in Rhode Island. The crudeness of construction is meant as a statement of the loss of handwork in our world. The contrast between the super high tech cloth and the crude construction is a symmetry of sorts. I hope to create greatness in the face of the mundane. Of course, the bullet-proof umbrella is the natural place to go?

Biography: Lenny Hoffman was smuggled out of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, hidden in his parents sex organs and assembled in the Free World. He has been a student of sculpture for 25 years and worked for many years creating fountains and public works from bronze and steel. He was also widely known in the Southwest during the 80s for his steel, cement, and mosaic tile creations and architectural work Lenny has also worked extensively as a video and performance artist and plays a mean accordion.