CHABOT OBSERVATORY AND SCIENCE CENTER MURAL

CHABOT OBSERVATORY AND SCIENCE CENTER MURAL PROJECT

Oakland, California

A public planetarium and science museum, the Chabot Observatory and Science Center, is building a beautiful new building in the hills overlooking Oakland. I was selected in 1996 as one of four artists to contribute public art to the building. My project will be a mural in about 14 panels, with the theme of the universe, depicted from the Earth-moon system outward through the solar system to the far reaches of intergalactic space. The mural has been underway, panel by panel, for several years, and is reaching fruition in 2000, when the building will open. This web page shows some work on the mural.


1. Preparing one of the 40x60 inch panels with black background outside my studio in Tucson Arizona. (1999)


2. Examining the early panels of the mural, from the Earth and sun out past Mars, with a collision in the asteroid belt (right panel). (1999)


3. The nebula segment of the mural in my studio (with a recent landscape painting on the chair at right). (2000)


4. Airbrush work on the galaxy segment. Airbrush is especially suitable to creation of the diffuse glow of the galaxy's center and spiral arms. (2000)


5. Adding details to the galaxy, including red-glowing hydrogen-rich nebular regions. (2000)

DETAILS FROM THE COMPLETED CHABOT MURAL

Apollo in orbit over the moon. I deliberately kept the linked Apollo command module and service module very small, with little detail, to emphasize the solitude of the lunar pioneers in the immensity of Earth/moon space. A collision of two asteroids in the asteroid belt. The asteroids have different colors and are of different composition. In addition, one of them has a small satellite (lower left). An extra-solar alien gas giant planet with an inhabited moon. Lights on the dark side of the moon hint at a technical civilization. Another moon is eclipsing the sun of this alien system. In the mural, this system is located outside our own Milky Way galaxy.

Opening of the museum and presentation of the finished mural is scheduled for summer of 2000.