#JWSTArt – Kitchen Inspiration

Photography/Tattoo – Brandi Smart

September 21, 2020 by 4g3nd4

Artists of all kinds were invited to apply for the chance to visit our Goddard Space Flight Center to be inspired by the giant, golden, fully-assembled James Webb Space Telescope mirror. Webb has a mirror that is nearly 22 feet high and (to optimize it for infrared observations) is covered in a microscopic layer of actual gold. Because of Webb’s visually striking appearance, the project hosted a special viewing event on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016.

There was an overwhelming response to the event invitation and ultimately twenty-four people were selected to attend. They represented a broad range of artistic media and styles, including: watercolor, 3D printed sculpture, silk screening, acrylics, sumi-e (East Asian brush technique), comics, letterpress, woodwork, metalwork, jewelry making, fiber art, ink, mural painting, kite-making, tattooing, scientific illustration, poetry, songwriting, and video making.

The artists spent several hours sitting right in front of the telescope, where they sketched, painted, took photos and even filmed a music video.

While some of the pieces of art were finished at the event, most of the artists went home with their heads full of ideas and sketchbooks full of notes.

We will continue to add event photos and art here to our Flickr.

This is Brandi Smart’s finished work, titled "Celestial Bodies."

ARTIST’S STATEMENT ON THIS WORK:

18 tattoos applied to volunteers, based on the future observations JWST will make, referencing many composite images from joint space efforts. It is a wonder to me that any of this is even possible, and everything we do as a species is connected to everything out there. You can’t help but feel "alien." "How strange it is to be anything at all."

MEDIA/SIZE:
Photography/Tattoo

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Posted by James Webb Space Telescope on 2017-03-10 19:12:32

Tagged: , jwstart

3D printed sculpture – Ashley Zelinskie

September 9, 2020 by 4g3nd4

The artists spent several hours sitting right in front of the telescope, where they sketched, painted, took photos and even filmed a music video.

While some of the pieces of art were finished at the event, most of the artists went home with their heads full of ideas and sketchbooks full of notes.

This is Ashley Zelinskie’s finished piece, titled, "Exploration."

ARTIST’S STATEMENT ON THIS WORK:
The purpose of the JWST mission. To look back in time and see how our universe was formed. To raise questions we never thought to ask. To reach into the unknown.
"Astronomy by its very nature drives us toward the unknown…there’s something uniquely human about wanting to find out about our surroundings, to explore our world, to discover new things. That’s what astronomy is all about." – Amber Straughn
Exploration was created using 3D scans of John C. Mather, astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate and Amber Straughn Astrophysicist; Deputy Project Scientist for JWST Science Communications. The arms are reaching out of the primary mirror of the JWST as though they are reaching through a portal to the ends of the universe. As they push through they are enveloped in information, formulas that have helped unlock the secrets of the universe.

John describes the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric which is used to wrap the arms of the piece. This metric is an exact solution of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity.

"The equations wrapped around the hands in this sculpture are the "FLRW" cosmological solution to Einstein’s field equations of general relativity, paired with the formula that describes a parabolic mirror. One might say we build one (the telescope primary mirror) to test the other (Einstein’s equations)."

The third arm is my own; the arm of an artist. The abstract idea of studying what you don’t know is hard to grasp. This is a disconnect that art can help fill in. Art asks people every day to think about abstract ideas and opens a doorway for creative thinking. My hope is to apply this open mindedness to science and in this way be better equipped to take in the universe in all its vastness and mystery.

MEDIA/SIZE:
3D printed gold plated nylon

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Posted by James Webb Space Telescope on 2017-03-10 19:22:01

Tagged: , jwstart

Fiber Art/Quilting – Sue Reno

September 7, 2020 by 4g3nd4

The artists spent several hours sitting right in front of the telescope, where they sketched, painted, took photos and even filmed a music video.

While some of the pieces of art were finished at the event, most of the artists went home with their heads full of ideas and sketchbooks full of notes.

We will continue to add event photos and art here to our Flickr.

This is Sue Reno’s finished work, titled, "Luminosity."

Detailed descriptions of the process and meaning of the various design elements (new window) are available on Sue Reno’s blog about Luminosity.
suereno.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Webb%20Space%20…

Artist Statement:

Hexagons are a perennial motif in quilts. I began stitching the silk hexagons representing the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope on site at NASA Goddard. Cyanotype dates from the 1840s as a pioneering photography process; these and the colored dye prints were developed outdoors using UV rays from the sun. The border image is from the other end of the photo technology spectrum, taken with a fisheye lens on an iPhone and digitally printed. The needle felted center panel is made with minimally processed wool and silk fibers and modern mylar strands. It is my depiction of the early luminosity, going back 13.5 billion years, which the telescope will be able to detect.

MEDIA/SIZE:
Fiber: Hand-stitched silk hexagons, needlefelting with wool, silk, and mylar, hand beadwork with semi-precious stones, cyanotypes and solar dye prints on cotton, digital prints on cotton, silk and cotton patchwork, stitching.
Size:60"h x 74"w

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Posted by James Webb Space Telescope on 2017-03-10 16:46:49

Tagged: , #JWSTArt