We all know that a good person can be a bad artist.
But no one will ever be a genuine artist
unless a great human being and thus also a good one.
Marc Chagall

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.
Imagination embraces the entire world,
and everything there will be to know and understand.
Imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
Albert Einstein

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.
I ♥! Dr. Seuss

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt


Frustration with the Augustine Committee

The Augustine Committee seems to be embracing heavy lift but oriented toward a space program of lunar missions, with Mars seen as an eventual objective in the indeterminate future. This is a serious mistake. If anyone reading this blog ever wants Mars to be explored, much less settled, in their lifetime, America must not only develop a heavy lift vehicle such as the Space X Falcon 9, or the Ares 5, but, the program must be oriented specifically toward Mars — not the moon. The moon is a siren call. Mars is an entirely different environment capable of supporting human civilization en mass. With a 24 hour day, vast quantities of water, and all the essential elements found on Earth, Mars offers humanity a permanent second home. Martian exploration would use aeroshells, parachutes, and on site refueling; the thermal, pressure, and gravitational environments are entirely different between Mars and the Moon. Lunar equipment and procedures will not evolve into Mars missions.
 
Asteroid mining and Martian settlement will provide the engine humanity needs to sustain a permanently expanding frontier. Mars Direct is a low cost straightforward way to settle Mars. Now!
The Mars Society is an international organization committed to this moral imperative. Products with variations of the “Cowards Return to the Moon” theme can be purchased at cost from Factual Fiction’s online store.
 
While such a populist theme may seem blunt, rude, or whatever, over the last decade of involvement in space advocacy we’ve observed a remarkably consistent dichotomy between persons involved in the space community: old political timid bureaucrat predictably favor lunar exploration, with their excuse being “safety, proximity to earth”; bold young creative entrepreneurs OVERWHELMINGLY favor Mars Direct, with their rally cry being, “LET’S GO!”
 
This dichotomy is so consistent, obvious, and predictable a simple biological solution could change American space policy: testosterone replacement therapy. No kidding. It is time to view lunar exploration with disdain. Cowards return to the moon!!!!

 

Eric Machmer: Mars Artists Community

Enough is enough: artists can make Martian exploration and settlement favorable to languishing in LEO or cowardly returning to the moon…simply by making the coolest, most cutting-edge, professional space imagery — ENTIRELY — Mars-centric.
 
The idea is to establish a model library copyrighted solely for creation of Mars imagery — but, otherwise open to use by any contributing artist or studio. Since 3D modeling is extremely labor intensive an artists’ cooperative centered upon developing Martian vehicles, habitats, and astronauts, will lower the cost of high-quality creative iterations by artists taking advantage of free Mars Only models. With a library of easily modified Mars Only models, through trial and error of creative processes, Mars Only productions will evolve to be of higher-quality, more pervasive, expressive, and cool!
 
This is in addition to the self-selection of artists who realize a Mars-oriented space exploration program — NOW! — is much more desirable than one languishing in LEO or returning to the moon. Not only will the most informed artists work on Mars-Only models — but, they will work together for a greater cause: the promotion of Martian exploration and settlement over the bureaucratic intertia of dream-crushing Lunar/LEO bullshit.
 
Eventually we will have our own website, blog, and online Mars-Only library, but, in the meantime checkout MarsSociety.org and send us a message if you are interested in hearing more or contributing: [email protected]

Role Model to Superheroes: Seo Jeong-ju ( 서정주 ), Korean Poet

 
Seo Jeong-ju (May 18, 1915 – December 24, 2000) was a Korean poet who wrote under the pen name Midang (“not yet fully grown”). He is widely considered the best poet in twentieth-century Korean literature. He was nominated five times for Nobel Prize in literature and published 15 books of poetry consisting of around 1,000 poems. After his death the South Korean Government officially presented him with the Gold Order.
 
On seeing Mudung Mountain
 
Poverty? Mere tattered clothing, no more!
How can that conceal our natural flesh, our natural mind?
Those are like mountains in summer, that stand
exposing their dark green ridges under a dazzling sun.
 
All we can do is raise our children
as the green hills raise orchids in their shady laps.
When the afternoon lengthens
and declining life ebbs drop by drop away,
you husbands and wives
must sometimes sit
and sometimes rather lie side by side.
 
Then the wife should gaze into her husband’s eyes,
the husband lay a hand on his wife’s brow.
 
Though we lie among thorns or in wormwood ditches,
we should always think we’re like jewels, buried alone
and at least gather moss thick over us.
Fresh green
 
What ever shall I do?
Ah, I’ve fallen in love.
In secret, all alone, I’ve fallen in love!
 
Everywhere petals are falling;
new verdure is sprouting again
around me on every side.
 
Writhing in utter grief,
red petals drop and fall;
fluttering fluttering dropping, they fall
 
like the breath of an ancient Silla girl,
like the hair of an ancient Silla girl,
in the wind in the meadows they drop and fall.
 
Again this year they scatter before me,
trembling brrr they scatter. . .
 
Ah, I’ve fallen in love.
I cannot sing like the warbler’s cry
all alone I’ve fallen in wonderful love
 

https://www.facebook.com/SeoJeongju
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seo_Jeong-ju

Astroanimation and Google Earth

A version of Google Earth has been released today which allows sunlight affecting views in Google Earth to be adjusted according to time of day, point of view, and season. Sunlight can actually be animated through time, for a period as short as a few minutes to as long as an entire year…from a moving viewpoint, too. Combined with architectural objects created in Google Sketch-up this is beyond exciting!! –Get this…you can design objects (buildings and sculptures) which cast shadows and otherwise interact with solar objects to create an animation!! Using the sun! The moon, clouds, landscapes, valleys, gigantic redwood forests, celestial events — eclipses, lunar and solar — constellations…the entire universe could be your living palette.
 
Think Stonehenge, Chichen Itza, or the Pyramids — only on an immense unbelievably detailed, complex scale. Entire cities — from nature reserves to sky scrapers to theme parks to residential houses — could be constructed in orientation to the sun and moon, sunsets and their shadows, surrounding landscapes, etc. All for a living, dynamic, co-ordinated changing visual animation, potentially occurring across hundreds of miles…lasting decades, centuries, millennia.
 
For instance, imagine if a planned community such as the Palm Island Resorts in Dubai were constructed to produce a living, constantly changing, narrative animation of cast shadows, reflected (sun, moon, and star) light, 24 hours a day 7 days a week for years — even taking into account within the narrative solar and lunar eclipses visible from the region centuries from now.
 
Structures within an Astro Theatre could be made to move in the wind, contract with temperature, open and close at night, focus and reflect from multiple mirrors, water fountains, stained glass canopies, canyon walls, lake surfaces, ocean fronts, and so on. The entire place could be a visual manifestation of our living universe. –All previewed in Google, constructed in Maya, and experienced online. High-school teams can create these theaters. What a cool way to teach astronomy…and animation, nature conservation, architecture, and so on — not to mention narrative storytelling. Unbelievably exciting. I hope I live long enough to create one of these. In the Grand Canyon, using natural structures….
 
[On a less ambitious scale Google Earth will permit previz of individual buildings so sunlight can be maximized — for example, in nursing homes for health reasons or in outdoor theaters so actual sunsets can be viewed within seasonal set designs, etc.]
 

Update: A Sundial that Shows Solstice “Explanation: What time is it? If the time and day are right, this sundial will tell you: SOLSTICE. Only then will the Sun be located just right for sunlight to stream through openings and spell out the term for the longest and shortest days of the year. And that happened last week and twice each year. The sundial was constructed by Jean Salins in 1980 and is situated at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines de Paris in Valbonne Sophia Antipolis of south-eastern France. On two other days of the year, watchers of this sundial might get to see it produce another word: EQUINOXE.” Image Credit & Copyright: Jean-Marc Mari

Eric Machmer: Tsam Dancers (Moleskine)

The little guy on the left with the artificially large head MASK — an iconic figure in Mongolian culture — is called “The Old White Man.” (This is not a racial or ethnic description; he comes from a hybrid of very old Tibetian Buddhist and native Mongolian traditions.) He is by far my favorite stylized dancing figure.
 

Suggestions for Improving…or, "if you want to learn to draw — draw, draw, draw."

Interesting article:

“Every day you are slowly reinventing yourself into the person/artist you’re going to be in ten years. Keep this in mind.”

“Generally speaking, if you are young and male, trust your opinions about your work a little less, you aren’t as good as you think. If you are a woman of any age,  you’re usually a little better than you give yourself credit for. This isn’t an exact thing, but psychologically, this seems to be how it works.”

“As a last comment, I would stress how important drawing is. Painting is an extension of drawing. If you don’t draw well, you will not paint well. Master drawing and you can do anything you want with it. It is the most fundamental skill in all the visual arts and is an asset to every visual artist. “

"Alice’s Adventures Under Ground"

Virtual books at the British Library are pretty cool, especially interesting are Lewis Carroll’s personal illustrations in his hand-written draft of “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground” (which even includes a photo of the original Alice).  Also available are a sketchbook of da Vinci, Mozart’s musical diary (with audio excerpts), and a notebook of Blake (with sketches). Enjoy!