Christine Carton
By Angie Francalancia
It was Christine Carton’s love of adventure, appreciation for self-improvement and admiration of Japanese artwork that first led her to the Morikami Museum when she arrived in South Florida two decades ago.
It’s her desire to share the place she calls a jewel that keeps her involved.
“Oh my God, she says. “This is a jewel we have in town, and we must continue to grow it. We need to treasure that.”
In the nearly 20 years since she discovered the Morikami, Carton has held just about every volunteer position they could create. She’s taught classes, chaired gala committees and, recently, become a trustee and member of the Wisdom Ring, the museum’s highest level of membership.
And through it all, she’s contributed to shaping the museum.
As a Wisdom member, she created a book group to read and discuss Japanese stories and authors, and she’s constantly coming up with new ideas for members and future members.
Credit it all to a sense of adventure that brought her from France to New York in the late 1960s.
“I was 23 and I needed adventures, and I wanted to get away from home,” she said. “I lived in Lyon, France, but I thought that Paris wasn’t far enough away. I had a cousin who lived in the U.S. I had my green card, so I went.”
With weak English language skills but lots of determination, Carton ended up working at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital by offering to work for three months for free.
“In not three but one month, I was on the payroll,” she said. She took advantage of the hospital’s affiliation with Columbia University, and went back to school. She took English classes and immersed herself in American culture.
Then, she studied electro microscopy at Fordham University, a field that later took her to work in labs at Sloan Kettering and Mount Sinai hospitals.
She now lives in Boca Raton.
“In France, you don’t have the opportunity to change your field,” she said. “When I came to the U.S., I went back to school and changed my life. I had nothing to lose. I had a sense of adventure. It’s wonderful, the people I’ve met here, the opportunity I’ve had. If you want to work, you have the opportunity.”
To this day, Carton continues to visit museums and hear lectures to feed her thirst for knowledge. She’s traveled extensively, including trips to Vietnam, Cambodia and Japan.
“Every place I go is always my favorite,” she says. “I’m always in awe of other countries. I like everywhere I’ve been. Anywhere I go, I try to see the craft of the country,” she adds. “I’ve always been an admirer of traditional crafts.”
Her love of learning and appreciation for different cultures shaped her volunteerism at the Morikami.
In the mid-1990s, she taught herself basket weaving, then taught others. She still holds classes at her home twice a week. She brought an exhibit to the Morikami called Kindred Spirits, which showed the similarity in the art form of the Japanese and in Shaker art, like her baskets.
“Both are very simple, yet graceful,” she said. “They’re very utilitarian, but well done and pleasing to the eye,” she said. The exhibit included a workshop in which she demonstrated basket weaving.
She regularly attends the museum’s exhibits and workshops. But perhaps her favorite part of the Morikami is the garden.
“It’s always changing. It’s always beautiful,” she says. “I like where the bamboo grove is. I find it very restful. You hear the whistling of the leaves. Every time I go to the garden, that’s where I go.
“Then I go back in the museum and see what’s going on in the gallery.” Ú
Comments