Lights, Camera, Action!

Have you ever wanted to make a film? Enter the Pegasus Film Festival.

Last year at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, my art teacher, Ms. Aidala, challenged our class to make a short film. My first attempt was just that - a first attempt, but I decided to enter it into the Pegasus Film Festival, the largest student run film festival in the country. Here is a link to my first film, One Small Step, that ended up being an official selection in the 2020 Pegasus (International) Film Festival. I added international because the entire event was virtual and included student entries from all over the world.

On May 22, 2021, my second film premiered during the 2021 (International) Pegasus Film Festival. My film did not win any awards, but I am so happy that One Giant Leap - The Athena Mission was selected and wanted to share it with you. My film will also be featured on the KERA series Frame of Mind on December 16, 2021 along with some other short films from the Pegasus Film Festival.

Thank you to Pegasus Film Festival for providing a platform for students to share their creativity with the community. See ya next year!

#PegasusFilmFestival #GreenhillSchool #FrameofMindKERA

Real Space Cowboys

Do you have to live in Texas to be a Space Cowboy? A lot of private space companies now have a large presence in Texas. Perhaps this idea goes back to the 1960's during the early days of the Space Race with the creation of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and John F. Kennedy's We Choose to Go to the Moon speech at Rice University in Houston Texas.

SpaceX tests their rocket engines in McGregor, Texas and launches Starship in Boca Chica, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Firefly Aerospace is based outside of Austin in Cedar Park, Texas and tests engines near Bertram, Texas. Blue Origin has been launching New Shepard at Launch Site One in West Texas. Check out this link for the recent NS-15 launch and don't miss this video of Ms. Caitlin Dietrich touring Blue Origin's Launch Site One, which will soon send astronauts up into space from Van Horn, Texas - initiating a new era of Space Cowboys.

I also love that Blue Origin is helping children understand that space is truly accessible to everyone. Blue Origin's Club for the Future aims to inspire youth to pursue careers in STEM and help visualize the future of life in space to benefit Earth. Your first mission (if you choose to accept it) asks kids to send a postcard to space.

My postcard was flown on NS-14 on January 14, 2021 and was returned to me in February. Working with the Loukoumi Foundation, I plan to collaborate with Club for the Future to have other children send postcards to space.

The catch is that 1) we will be sending positive or inspirational messages into space and 2) instead of having the postcards returned to the sender, they would be sent to a grandparent or a patient at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or a resident in a senior living facility through 3 Wishes for Ruby's Residents - really anyone that would appreciate a simple note after being isolated for the past year due to the pandemic. Please join me in sharing inspirational messages to someone who could really use them. In fact, if that someone is you, please send me a note and I will make sure that you receive a postcard.

“If you come together with a mission, and its grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible.” – Congressman John Lewis

Updated March 2023

I have recently learned that my postcards were launched on NS-23, which encountered a launch failure on September 12, 2022. The good news is that no crew were aboard this spacecraft and that the escape system jettisoned the capsule to land safely without damage. Blue Origin expects to launch the recovered payloads in a re-flight soon. Keep checking your mail, as you may receive a postcard flown to space soon.

#BlueOrigin #ClubForTheFuture #NS15 #EarthNeedsSpace

Space for Art

Space for Art or Art for Space? That is the question.

I recently had a chance to attend a webinar featuring Chris Calle (son of Paul Calle whose sketch of Buzz Aldrin suiting up for Apollo 11 is pictured above) on NASA's Art Program, created in 1962. The program was the creation of NASA Administrator James Webb (think Webb telescope - a future blog discussion) to document and create portraits of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. Eight artists were invited to the NASA Art Program which included Paul Calle, Lamar Dodd, Peter Hurd, Mitchell Jamieson, Robert T. McCall, John W. McCoy, Robert Shore, and George Weymouth.

Over the years, the program has included artists such as Annie Leibowitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and William Wegman, among many others. I really like this painting of Skyway by Robert Rauschenberg in the Dallas Museum of Art collection and will seek it out each time I visit.

I expect that the NASA Art Program inspired other artists. One of my favorite artists who muse about space is Tom Sachs (pictured below) who created the Tea Ceremony exhibition. I had the chance to see Tea Ceremony at the Nasher Sculpture Center and even met Tom Sachs at The Great Create and filmmaker/tea master Johnny Fogg at a tea ceremony. I have included a link of Tea Ceremony filmed at the Noguchi Museum in NYC.

I had the chance to visit The Contemporary Austin - Laguna Gloria in March 2021 and saw two Tom Sachs sculptures in the garden including Miffy Fountain, a silicon bronze sculpture of the popular Dutch bunny character that appears to be crying (tears of joy, I think) and Tower of Power, a pillar of cast bronze car batteries. Thanks to Spread & Co., I also enjoyed a very nice Matcha Latte in the garden as a celebration to Tom Sachs. Cheers!

I look forward to the next generation of artists who will participate in NASA's Art Program by documenting the Artemis Missions with astronauts flying on the Orion spacecraft and SLS. I cannot help to wonder which artists will fill the space boots of artists before them.

#NasherSculptureCenter #DallasMuseumofArt #TheContemporaryAustin #TomSachs #RobertRauschenberg #PaulCalle #ARTemis