Category Archives: art

art, galaxies, galaxy garden

This Garden Universe

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The Galaxy Garden

The Galaxy Garden at Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Image copyright 2013 Carolyn Collins Petersen.
The Galaxy Garden at Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Image copyright 2013 Carolyn Collins Petersen.

Back when I was in college the first time (about the time of the Triassic), I had an astronomy professor who encouraged us to be creative in our final projects for extra credit. I was already running an A in the class, so I decided to do a book review of a popular “science” book that turned out to be about a hoax subject.  Some of my other classmates were much more creative, and so they turned in things like a pizza in the shape of M51, quilted stars, and star poetry.

I was reminded of that class (and how much fun we had the last day eating that pizza and listening to a poetry reading) when I saw a little blurb online about the Galaxy Garden in Kona, Hawai’i.  It’s an actual garden in the shape of our Milky Way Galaxy and each plant and flower has special significance to help explain the shape and makeup of our galaxy. There’s an amazing wealth of educational info on the website — I suggest you check out the page and its wonderful explanations of the art and design, as well as the science of the garden!

I happen to be a huge fan of the Big Island of Hawai’i.  I did two planetary science field trips there during grad school, went on an eclipse expedition there in 1991, have been to several meetings there and in Honolulu, and I work with the folks at Gemini and Subaru Observatories from time to time with their public outreach materials.

I’m also a fan of Jon Lomberg’s work. He lives on the Big Island but his work is known world-wide. His art is featured in Cosmos (the ground-breaking TV documentary by Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan), and has been commissioned by NASA, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Sky & Telescope Magazine, and on the covers of various magazines and books.  He’s a great and creative guy and so it’s no surprise that he conceived of and implemented this lovely garden at the Paleaku Peace Gardens Sanctuary in Kona. It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to go back to the Big Island and see it!

art, music, painting, space art

Can Astronomers be Artists?

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…and can Artists be Astronomers?

I was reading again about Brian May, the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen and chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. He started out in college doing work for a PhD in astrophysics, left it to join the band, and then in 2007 went back and finished his thesis and graduated in 2008 with the Fudd.

Now, I don’t see anything too unusual about this. Back in the day when I worked at a science lab at the university, a fair number of us geeks were also into artsy things. I myself play piano (not well), know how to sing, and play recorder. And, I write short stories, know how to embroider, and love to diddle with stuff in Photoshop. Another grad student at the lab was a ballet dancer (and she kept it up throughout all her years in grad school). Another was a guitarist and we also had a couple of drummers, a flautist or two, a saxophonist, and even a small recorder ensemble tucked away in various departments at the lab.

Astronomer and artist Robert Hurt (IPAC) created this scene of a young planet being born in a protoplanetary disk.
Astronomer and artist Robert Hurt (IPAC) created this scene of a young planet being born in a protoplanetary disk.

Lately I’ve run into astronomer-writers, astronomer-singers, astronomer-actors, and even an astronomer-belly dancer.

And, of course, there are the wonderful folks who are astronomers and space artists — putting their many and varied passions to work to show us how the universe looks.

In fact, I’ve found out over the years that scientists (and not just astronomers) are often quite accomplished at some aspect of art or design, too. Historically, some of the early astronomers composed music (Herschel), painted (18th-century amateur John Russell), and were quite creative and artsy types.

On campus, many of us spent time going to concerts at the music school and perusing exhibits at the art school. We didn’t always see art students and music school students coming to our Thursday afternoon colloquia to learn more about science, which I think is kind of sad. I think that science and art go hand in hand, like some great cosmic thread that ties together the creativity a scientist needs to explore the universe with the same impulse that  an artist needs to sculpt and sing and paint.