The Society of Creative Arts of Newtown (SCAN) will welcome James Grashow, who will be talking and demonstrating about his work, at Newtown Meeting House on Wednesday, June 24. The free program will begin at 1:30 pm.

The meeting house is at 31 Main Street (at the flagpole), and the program will be in the lower room.

Art dealer Alan Stone represented James Grashow for four decades. In visiting Mr Stone’s home in Purchase, N.Y. , after his death in 2006, Mr Grashow was surprised to see his giant papier-mâché outside in the elements, left to disintegrate.

Soon Grashow began to realize that all art decays. Why not embark on a grand work that admits its own mortality, that embraces its own destruction? Thus began the four-year project, “Corrugated Fountain.”

The cardboard sculpture was inspired by Bernini’s famous Trevi Fountain in Rome. Over time, the enormous fountain emerged as a turbulent assemblage of dolphins, of nymphs holding trumpets to their lips, astride rearing horses. At the center, Poseidon sat on a rock, trident in hand, flanked by two meditating figures, one in the chin-on-hand pose of Rodin’s “Thinker.” It was 14 feet high at its tallest point, and needed an area of 25 by 17 feet in order to be presented.

Over time, corrugated board became Grashow’s preferred medium.

“It’s so ephemeral,” he has said. “It’s so grateful for the opportunity to become something, because it knows it is going to be trash.”

“Corrugated Fountain” was completed in 2007, and made its debut at the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Va. Following stops in Manhattan and Pittsburgh, it arrived at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield in 2012 for what Exhibitions Director Richard Klein called “its last bow.”

There, for the first time, it was exposed to the elements. As the artist intended, “Corrugated Fountain” made its impression and then vanished during its six-week visit in Ridgefield.

Alan Stone’s daughter, Olympia Stone, chronicled the rise and then decline of “Corrugated Fountain” in her documentary, The Cardboard Bernini.

James Grashow is also a well known woodcut artist. His prints have appeared regularly in The New York Times and in most well-known periodicals and publications throughout the country.

Reservations are not needed for SCAN programs, but additional information is available by calling 203-426-6654.