{"id":17515,"date":"2009-08-05T11:16:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T18:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=17515"},"modified":"2015-08-17T14:55:47","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T21:55:47","slug":"out-of-this-world-sculptures-featured-in-nau-profs-lowell-observatory-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/out-of-this-world-sculptures-featured-in-nau-profs-lowell-observatory-exhibit\/","title":{"rendered":"Out-of-this-world sculptures featured in NAU prof\u2019s Lowell Observatory exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

When artist\u00a0Paula Rice<\/strong>\u00a0peers through telescopes at the night sky, she not only observes the cosmos, she finds herself.<\/p>\n

Rice, a Northern Arizona University art professor, recently completed \u201cThe Planets,\u201d figurative interpretations of the planets around the sun. It features nine clay sculptures inspired by Rice\u2019s lifelong love for astronomy and images captured by the Hubble Telescope.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreating these sculptures was a way for me to go to the planets without the physical trip, and to meet myself when I get there.\u201d Rice said. \u201cWe are made of star stuff. We are billion-year-old carbon ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In honor of the International Year of Astronomy, \u201cThe Planets\u201d will be on display in the historic Rotunda Museum at\u00a0Lowell Observatory<\/a>from Aug. 5 to Sept.19, with a public opening reception with the artist beginning at 6 p.m. today, Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

Rice\u2019s humanlike planets not only set out to capture her experience of the universe as \u201cloving, intelligent and harmonious,\u201d they also incorporate the empirical evidence of planet surfaces provided through photos from the Hubble Telescope.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy new work is a way for me to imagine a reality incomprehensively vast and bring it down to human size,\u201d Rice explained. \u201cThe series is about us here on Earth. For the first time in human history, our sense of place and the size of our imaginations have to stretch to include new information about these worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said each ceramic planet features new landscape and surface information from the space photography.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo some degree their very postures relate astronomically to what we know about the planets,\u201d Rice said. \u201cFor example, the figure Mars is positioned drinking water out of its hand. Uranus has an accurate pea green and bluish glaze for its gaseous nature, and I made Venus to be inhospitably hot, with red searing eyes and lava flowing from the figure onto the pedestal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venus also incorporates the art history associated with the mythical goddess. She sits looking seductively over her shoulder. Jupiter balances its moon in its fingertips. Saturn looks meditative, cradling its fiberglass-crafted rings in the palm of its hands. Neptune features white clouds over a bright blue glaze. Mercury and Pluto are childlike.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot including Pluto was never an option,\u201d said Rice, who has lived in Flagstaff for 22 years and is a regular visitor to Lowell Observatory, where the \u201cdemoted\u201d planet originally was discovered.<\/p>\n

The Earth, covered in swirly clouds, sits with its legs crossed and hands resting in its lap as a gold dolphin dives into its ocean center.<\/p>\n

Rice said she began the project with the planet Earth after a series of northern Arizona wildfires broke out about four years ago sparking her interest in the tumultuous beauty of fire.<\/p>\n

To create the planets, Rice used various types of clay, glazes and kiln firing techniques. They weigh from about 20 to 80 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter trying to paint fire on canvas, I said forget that, I am going to treat the surface of my figures like the surface of the Earth and put fire there among clay canyons, rocks and river beds,\u201d she said. \u201cI think of our bodies as our home planet, so it wasn\u2019t that much of a leap to look out at the other planets and use the human body as a representation of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the ceramic planets, each built on a sturdy ceramic base, also are influenced compositionally by the frontal nature and sense of stillness of ancient Egyptian figurative sculpture, \u201ca sensibility that seems appropriate to planets when I look out at them through telescope,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Rice has been studying night skies for years and once belonged to four astronomy clubs simultaneously.<\/p>\n

She said her love for the mystery and beauty of the universe was the ultimate inspiration for \u201cThe Planets,\u201d which was unveiled during a juried international venue in conjunction with the National Council in Education for the Ceramics Arts Conference in Phoenix last April.<\/p>\n

View the complete collection\u00a0online.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When artist\u00a0Paula Rice\u00a0peers through telescopes at the night sky, she not only observes the cosmos, she finds herself. Rice, a Northern Arizona University art professor, recently completed \u201cThe Planets,\u201d figurative interpretations of the planets around the sun. It features nine clay sculptures inspired by Rice\u2019s lifelong love for astronomy and images captured by the Hubble…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":17516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}