Over forty-thousand people have visited Hope, Arkansas since the Clinton Birthplace Museum was restored and opened in 1997 by the Clinton Birthplace Foundation.  Of the world’s 193 countries, citizens from 157 countries have come to visit President Bill Clinton’s first home,  the home he shared with his widowed mother and maternal grandparents Edith and Eldridge Cassidy.  The museum’s World Atlas Map is filled with red visitor pins from Antarctica to Greenland, all around the equator and almost everywhere in between.  Visitors make the pilgrimage because President Clinton’s ideas and policies have had an important impact in their lives and their countries.  They want to know about his life. 
 
The Clinton Birthplace Global Visitors Tree was a combination of native pines, cedars and magnolia branches.  The tree was presented in an ecumenical spirit, in the tradition of many countries, cultures and faiths.  The tree represented the putting aside of differences and gathering together around light during the dark days of winter.  Names of the 157 countries represented on the museum’s visitor map were written on the ornament ribbons. 

Atop the tree was a small dove with a large olive branch, to remind us all that even small acts of kindness can be of major importance to others.  The Global Visitors Tree was accented with clouds of blue netting with green and blue lights representing the waters of Earth, the clusters of grapes alongside suggests the abundance of the Earth.  The purple and gold chains of beads represented the importance of communication among all countries.  The river of sparkling blue lights and net ended in a basket filled with fruit.   Beside it was an empty basket as a reminder of places on this Earth where there is no abundance.

There was a bowl of Stone Soup at the base of the tree, to recall the folktale of a stranger who came to a town where people were angry with each other,  they had little, and didn’t even talk together.  The  stranger saw they were cold and hungry.  No one invited him in.  So the stranger gathered some firewood and filled his small cooking pot with water from the river.  He sat down in the village square and built a fire to heat his pot of water.  The stranger knew the village people were watching him from behind their curtains.  When the water began to steam took a potato-sized rock out of his satchel and put it in the water.  He stirred the water and sat.  The people became curious. 

One villager ventured out to ask the stranger why he was cooking a rock. Was the fellow crazy?  “Oh, it’s Stone Soup I’m making.  Will you share it with me?  It will be very good, but it would be better if it had an onion.”  So the villager went back to his home and brought out an onion.  Another and another person grew curious enough to come out of their homes, out of their anger.  To each one the stranger welcomed them to share his Stone Soup, but remarked how much better it would be if it had a carrot or a bit of garlic and so forth.  Before long the whole village had gathered around the stranger’s warm fire and his increasingly aromatic Stone Soup, each having brought some bit of something to contribute to the Stone Soup.  Soon they had a delicious soup, and all grew warm from the fire.  The stranger told them good stories and the villagers began laughing and soon began talking to each other again.  The bowl of Stone Soup at the base of our Global Visitors Tree was meant to remind us of what we can do when we share what we have.

Our Global Visitors Tree was dedicated to the over forty-thousand  people who have traveled from near and far to visit President Clinton’s first home.  The lighting design of the tree is inspired by Clinton’s Global Initiative.  It is a visual arts response to President Clinton’s Foundation to strengthen and foster global interdependence.