Elaine Hastings Mason
FORMER ARTS COORDINATOR FOR PARKS DIES AT 58
 

Elaine Hastings Mason, one of the originators of the Topiary Garden at the Old Deaf School Park, died yesterday of lung cancer. She was 58.

Mason was an arts coordinator for the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department before retiring several years ago. She worked there for more than 30 years.

Mason taught art classes in city recreation centers and served as a coordinator for the department's Music in the Air series of summer concerts. She also helped develop the city's Red, White and Boom celebration for the July 4th holiday.

The topiary garden was started in 1988 in the park at E. Town Street and Washington Avenue, on what had been the site of the state school for the deaf.

Mason had asked her husband, James, a Columbus sculptor, to consider creating a topiary -- a shrub trained into an ornamental shape -- for the back yard of their Victorian Village home. He said he would like to develop a grander scene replicating Georges Seurat's 1884 painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

Mrs. Mason eventually took the idea to the Recreation and Parks Department. The project won funding from the department, Motorists Mutual Insurance and the Town/ Franklin Neighborhood Association.

"Elaine had a green thumb, so for her it was a real natural,'' Mr. Mason said yesterday. "It was a combination of horticulture and sculpture, so we made a very good team.''

The garden, dedicated in 1992, has received international attention.

The Masons also developed other topiary displays -- one of athletes for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and one of animals for the Children's Hospital at Stanford University Medical Center in California.

Besides her husband, Mrs. Mason is survived by her mother, Evelyn Hastings; a brother, Robert L. Hastings; and two sisters, Sandra McCormick Ruddell and Karen Adkins-Hastings.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Schoedinger Midtown Chapel, 229 E. State St. The funeral will be there at 2 p.m. Thursday.

bmayr@dispatch.com