Poetry - Hannah Larrabee
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 Hannah Larrabee's poem, titled, "James Webb Space Telescope."
Letterpress by Bow & Arrow Press
Artist's Statement on this Work:
James Webb Space Telescope:This is an origin poem inspired by a conversation with Dr. Straughn about her childhood, and the influence a rural upbringing can have in regard to dark skies. Having grown up on a blueberry farm in Maine, I could relate. The poem invokes rural images: the sound of walking the fields at night, the powerful proximity of stars; my father's honeybees, my mother's Black-Eyed Susans. As human beings, there is the necessity of storytelling to conceptualize our universe. There is also the necessity to link stories like filaments.
James Webb Space Telescope
These 18 mirrors of beryllium and gold, they want nothing
to do with us. Like hounds with hunting in the blood, they want
to nose the air for something we can't see. Besides, we have made
a habit of ourselves, the camera turned around, Narcissus in a screen.
13.8 billion years and for what, for us to stop asking questions?
To no longer draw a thread between stories? Like you, I have fallen
asleep in the fields under a blanket of stars. Like you, something
in me grows restless. Honeycomb. Black-Eyed Susan. These are not
the right words to describe it. Somewhere in the shade of the Earth,
far from the Sun, you will wake from a dream you already had.
You will find yourself back inside the field of things, the chorus
of insects at night, chatter of sharp wings. And the first images
that come back to you will feel as familiar as the cell, the flower,
the infinite snowflake.
for Dr. Amber Straughn, Astrophysicist
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