Starry, Starry Night Where Art and Astronomy Collide! August 13-14, 2010 | Montalvo Arts Center
www.montalvoarts.org
Montalvo Arts Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering community engagement through the creation and presentation of multidisciplinary art. Located in the Saratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style villa on 175 stunning acres, which Senator James Duval Phelan left to the people of California for the encouragement of art, music, literature, and architecture. Montalvo’s arts education programs provide quality experiences for diverse ages and interests through collaborative programs that include exposure to the arts, interaction with artists, and opportunities to engage in the creative process. The education programs provide experiences in the arts for more than 20,000 K-12th grade students and teachers each year.
Starry, Starry Night 2010 is presented by Montalvo’s Arts Education Programs:
Education Programs Staff: Michael Berta; Romola Breckenridge; Lonnie Cedillo & Facilities Team; Robert Garrett & Kirsten Bontrager, Manager Production Team; Mary Garza; Becki Gervin; Jill Lauren Baines, Coordinator Jacknow; Diane Maxwell; Babette McKay & Emily Feather, Summer Programs Montalvo’s Volunteers; Dan North; Kelly Sicat; Jim Sheehan & Box Office Staff; Julie Thorne; Brandon Carolyn Nickell, Summer Programs Reyes; and Nathan Zanon. Elaine Carreon, Intern Thank you for your help!
Special thanks to: Lilia Agüero; Pilar Agüero-Esparza; Albert Au; Jerry Falek; Michelle Fuerst; Patti Henry; Garret Holthaus; Mark León; Marco Maytorena; NASA Speakers Bureau; Onomy Labs (Scott Minneman & Dale MacDonald) & J.D. Beltran; Miguel Palma; Ron Scheldrup; Ranger Bryon Stadler & Santa Clara County Parks; Vinnie’s Hot Dogs; Ellen Welt; and Sandi Yellenberg.
Funding for Montalvo’s arts programs is provided by contributions from individuals, foundations, corporations and government agencies. Our Arts Education Programs are generously supported by: Charmaine and Dan Warmenhoven Sally and Don Lucas Kim Worsencroft and Dennis McEvoy Alliance for the Advancement of Arts and Education American Century Foundation Applied Materials Beth Longwell Foundation Comerica Charitable Foundation Ginn Family Foundation Heffernan Group Foundation House Family Foundation James Phelan Trust Member of Montalvo Arts Center Mission City Community Fund Montalvo Service Group SanDisk Corporation Saratoga Rotary Charitable Foundation Silicon Valley Community Foundation Target US Bank Wells Fargo Foundation
Front Cover: Sunset from the International Space Station (May, 2010) Image Credit: Expedition 23 Crew, NASA (antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov) A sunset captured from the International Space Station shows in vivid detail many layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. The dark bottom of the image is the Earth experiencing night. Earth’s troposphere, which contains 80% of the atmosphere’s mass and all of the clouds in the sky, appears in deep orange and yellow. The light blue band above the troposphere is the stratosphere, where airplanes fly. The darker blue bands are higher and thinner atmospheric levels, gradually fading into the dark vacuum of outer space. Completing 15.7 orbits per day, occupants of the International Space Station see as many as 16 sunsets and sunrises in 24 hours. Starry, Starry Night 2010 ACTIVITIES & PRESENTERS ongoing Sculpture on the Grounds: Nest (2005): Artist Steven Siegel’s Nest is layered inside a circle of Bay Laurel trees on a trail behind the Villa. Over time, the newsprint has darkened and softened, resembling natural materials such as slate or stone. For Siegel, his work becomes more interesting as “the paper slowly changes appearance and starts to host various molds, fungi, insects and flora,” providing compost for new life, and mimicking the cycles of nature. Known for his large monolithic and site-specific sculpture, Steven Siegel crafts boulders, vessels, containers and geological formations from the most common artifacts of contemporary culture—newsprint, cans and plastic. His fascination for geological “deep time” has led to him to emulate the natural layering cycles of sedimentation, compression, deposit and decay underlying the configurations of the earth.
Broken Wing (2004): David Middlebrook’s ode to objects we take for granted but depend upon everyday, like a wing nut for a carpenter. – HAYWIRE (2006): A visual description of something gone terribly wrong, suggesting that even gravity could be altered. – Incidental Incubator (2010): A sculptural representation of the class system and its failure to plan for the future of humanity. – Golden Opportunity Lost (2010): With the glowing gold-leaf underside of its blue canopy this work suggests the missing Golden Egg: something perfect and not necessarily attainable. – Head of Man (2010): Resting upon a piece of basalt, the bronze shape of a man’s head is composed of a patchwork of small pieces, celebrating the united diversity of our humanity. Los Gatos based sculptor David Middlebrook was born and raised in Jackson, Michigan, and went on to earn his M.F.A from the University of Iowa in 1970. After accepting a teaching position at San Jose State University, he relocated to CA and maintains a studio in the hills of Los Gatos to this day.
Ode to Montalvo (2010): Ann Weber’s series of large scale site-specific sculptures were inspired by seeds she found here on the grounds. She created the sculptures out of cardboard on site with a team of community volunteers, placing them on Montalvo’s estate under the trees that first inspired her. Bay Area sculptor Ann Weber transforms the ordinary medium of cardboard into large-scale organic sculptures. Weber, who began her career as a ceramic artist, finds great interest in the possibility of making beautiful objects from common and mundane materials. Weber received her BA from Purdue University and her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts.
Open (2010)* and From Within, So Without (2010) Ali Naschke-Messing’s site specific installations at Montalvo are subtle and contemplative pieces that can be easily missed in the rush of every day. Naschke-Messing’s work interacts with its surroundings, quietly calling attention not to the work itself but to the space in which it exists - thus hinting at intangible dimensions around us. Installation artist Ali Naschke-Messing is a native Californian currently living in San Francisco. Having completed her MFA at the California College of the Arts in 2007, she explores architecture while creating spatially quiet moments and reminds us to look carefully at what surrounds us.
* Open is on view in the Project Space Gallery, 6:00-9:30pm. Starry, Starry Night 2010 ACTIVITIES & PRESENTERS
6:00 – Concessions: Food and drinks (both hot and cold) are available for purchase. Enjoy 10:30 gourmet hot dogs or a savory snack from Vinnie’s Hot Dogs – including vegetarian options – or treat yourself to a sweet from Kick’s Ice Cream. Complimentary Popcorn is served between 9pm-10:30pm.
8:00 – Lunar Micro Rovers: The Lunar Micro Rover Project offers the new frontier in 9:00 space technology, combining the need to be economical with a need to have an easily assembled, repaired, and customized robotic tool that can navigate various planetary surfaces. Since the 1980’s, Mark Joseph León has held a number of positions at NASA focused on technical advances. In 1999, León developed NASA’s Robotics Education Project (now called the Robotics Alliance Project) under his mentor Dave Lavery, which has reached out to over 100,00 students nationwide using FIRST robotics and BOTBALL robotics competitions. From 2001-2006, León was the Deputy Director and then the Director of Education at Ames Research Center. León continues to manage the Robotics Alliance Project inspiring students across America. Also, thank you to the NASA Speakers Bureau for such great support!
9:00 – Back and Forth (2010): Miguel Palma’s Back and Forth paradoxically invites viewers 11:00 to look toward the ground in order to see what is from the sky: in this case an iron meteorite that fell to Earth in 1947 in eastern Siberia. A piece of this Sikhote-Alin meteorite** is magnified by a microscope on the Front Veranda to massive screen- sized proportions. Meanwhile, at the far end of the lawn, a telescope focuses on this projection, re-magnifying the distant image. Miguel Palma is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal, exploring matters related to the world’s hurried technological development and proposing alternative (and ironic) paths to this hunger of new. Currently a Montalvo artist-in-residence, Miguel’s work has been shown internationally, and will be included in the upcoming ZER01 art & technology festival in San Jose.
9:00 – Stellarium: Enjoy watching constellations sail across the sky thanks to this free, 11:00 open source software. Except for an increased rate of time, Stellarium projects the sky precisely as seen from the Oval Garden’s exact latitude, longitude and altitude. In this projection, daylight is invisible, thus revealing constellations normally blocked by the sun’s rays. Look closely for the constellation’s names according to our Western starlore culture. Download it yourself at www.stellarium.org.
** The Story of the Sikhote-Alin Meteorite: On the morning of February 12, 1947, along the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in Eastern Siberia, a flaming fireball suddenly appeared in the sky, followed by an ear-splitting explosion that was felt 100 miles away. Three and a half miles above the ground, a giant meteoroid had disintegrated in flight and fallen to Earth. The raining iron played havoc with the forest, cutting down entire trees and becoming embedded in the ground. This event was unique in history as there had never before been an observed fall of an iron meteorite of this magnitude. These observations allowed scientists to calculate that the Sikhote- Alin meteorite originated within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Starry, Starry Night 2010 ACTIVITIES & PRESENTERS
9:00 – Through the Telescope: Powerful telescopes will be available on the Front Lawn 12:00 for your viewing pleasure, courtesy of astronomers Garret Holthaus, Marco Maytorena and Ron Scheldrup. Accompanying these telescopes is Ron’s original Starport hand-held astronomy computer, bringing information about the planets, stars and 10,000 other deep-sky objects—and how to find each one— within easy reach.
9:00 – AstroTable by Onomy Labs: (Scott Minneman and Dale MacDonald with J.D. Beltran) 11:00 Discover the planets, stars and constellations, and “fly” anywhere in the universe! Navigate around the universe by physically tilting the tabletop to move in longitude and latitude, and spin the tabletop to zoom closer or further from a target location – from the Earth, to the Moon, the International Space Station, Mars and more! Used by state-of-the-art planetariums worldwide, the SCISS Uniview software database allows you to traverse the known universe and explore myriad features of what scientists currently know about the vast expanse of space. Scott Minneman is an artist, designer, inventor and the co-founder of Onomy Labs. Long engaged in and with the practice of interdisciplinary design, his experience includes architectural and engineering design, embedded systems, interactive video, installation art, interactive robotics for the physically challenged, and communication aids for deaf and non- vocal individuals. www.onomy.com Onomy Labs co-founder Dale MacDonald has developed new processes for manufacturing CMOS non-volatile memories, built and performed electronic musical instruments, built systems for large interactive displays, been a performance artist, hacked a ton of code in too many languages, designed lights for dance, museums and rock and roll, been president of the Asian American Dance Performances Board of Directors, and completed an MFA in Art Practice at the University of California, Berkeley. J.D. Beltran is a conceptual artist, filmmaker and writer exploring the contexts, language and scope of how one portrays and mirrors a subject – whether a person, a city, an atmosphere, an episode, a time. Her work, in a multiplicity of mediums, has been screened and exhibited internationally. She is faculty in the New Genres, Interdisciplinary Studies, Critical Studies, and Urban Studies Programs at the San Francisco Art Institute.
9:00 – MicroObservatory: Use this unique software to digitally recolor and edit breathtaking 11:00 space photos taken using the Harvard-Smithsonian’s MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network. Print your eye-catching edited photos for a souvenir, and astound your friends with the newly revealed beauty of our galaxy.
9:00 – Create Your Own Cosmos: Use magically metallic materials in tonight’s hands- 11:00 on art project. Combine interstellar stencil shapes with a variety of colors and techniques to create your own unique galactic skyscape. Then, check out the button-maker nearby to see what celestial accessories you can compose. Originally from Los Angeles, Lilia Agüero has worked in administrative and leadership capacities in local nonprofit arts, cultural and education sector since 1997. Beginning in 2006, she has worked for the Santa Clara County Office of Education Professional Development Services as the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator. Bay Area artist Pilar Agüero-Esparza’s work includes themes of culture, commerce, and specialized labor. She recently completed a residency in South Central LA at her father’s shoe repair shop and will present the resulting art El Shop (2010) at Zero1 San Jose’s Out of the Garage. Agüero-Esparza holds an MFA from SJSU and teaches at The Harker School, San Jose. Starry, Starry Night 2010 ACTIVITIES & PRESENTERS
9:15 – Night Hike: Local Santa Clara County Park Ranger Bryon Stadler leads an interactive 9:45 night hike on Montalvo’s trails. Appropriate for all ages and skill levels. Meet at the Garden Theater. The mission of the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department is to provide, protect and preserve regional parklands for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations. Many of the County’s regional parks feature recreational areas as well as points of cultural and historic interest. Currently, the parks system covers 27 park units encompassing nearly 45,000 acres, including Montalvo’s 175 acres.
9:45 – Star Stories: Master performer and former planetarium manager Jerry Falek brings 10:15 us stories about the cosmos from three different cultures. Hear a Native Californian Miwok tale called "The Six Women Who Ate Onions," a Slavic story about the sun called "Solntse, the Girl at the End of the World," and more. Jerry Falek is a performing and teaching artist who works not only throughout Central California, but also in such diverse places as rural Alaska and Soledad Prison. He appears regularly as a storyteller at the Children's Discovery Museum, the Los Gatos Museum of Art, and at middle schools from Palo Alto to Hollister. He is a mentor teacher for Theatre Works in Palo Alto. His storytelling programs range from Curious George to the Holocaust and World War II. He likes to quote the 19th century writer G. K. Chesterton who wrote, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
10:30 – Midnight Movies: Enjoy movies that inspire the inner astronomer and keep us 1:00 gazing into space. Films include Pixar’s animated short Lifted, WALLE and more! Lifted tells the story of an overconfident teen alien, who must attempt to abduct a farmer under the watchful eye of a stern instructor, but the complex controls of the spaceship lead to a few missteps along the way. RATED G In the distant future, mankind has abandoned Earth because it became uninhabitable and covered with trash. WALLE, a garbage-collecting robot, is left alone to clean up the mess, but he finds a new purpose in life when he meets the sleek search robot EVE and inadvertently stumbles upon the key to the planet’s future. RATED G
6:45 – Pancake Breakfast: After a long night of stargazing, what could be better than 7:45 to wake to the aroma of breakfast cooking? We present a menu of whole grain pancakes with summer fruit compote and maple syrup. Pair it with your favorite beverage: orange juice or fresh brewed coffee. Worth getting up for! Starry, Starry Night 2010 MAP & ACTIVITIES KEY
1. Business Office: Emergency 5. Oval Garden: 8. Solarium/Front Veranda: Phone & First Aid (ongoing) Stellarium (9pm-11pm) MicroObservatory (9pm-11:00pm) Star Stories (9:45pm-10:20pm) Back & Forth (9pm-11pm) 2. Side Veranda: Art (9pm-11pm) Pancake Breakfast (6:45am-7:45am) AstroTable (9pm-11pm) 6. Pavilion: Project Space (6:00pm-9:30pm) 8b & 9. Lower Front Lawn: 3. Carriage House Theatre: Concessions & Snacks (6pm-10:30pm) Back & Forth (9pm-11pm) Welcome Talk (8pm-9pm) Telescopes (9pm-11pm) Movies (10:30pm-1am) 7. Nest (ongoing) 10. Front Lawn: Sleeping Area: Please 4. Garden Theatre: respect other guests who wish to Night Hike (9:00pm-9:30pm) sleep or quietly watch the stars. Starry, Starry Night 2010 MAP & ACTIVITIES KEY
1. Business Office: 6. Pavilion: Emergency Phone & First Aid Project Space (6:00pm-9:30pm) (ongoing) Concessions & Snacks (6pm-10:30pm)
2. Side Veranda: 7. Nest: (ongoing) Art (9-11pm) AstroTable (9pm-11pm) 8. Solarium / Front Veranda: MicroObservatory (9pm-11pm) 3. Carriage House Theatre: Back & Forth (9pm-11pm) Welcome Talk (8pm-9pm) Pancake Breakfast (6:45am-7:45am) Movies (10:30pm-1am) 8b & 9. Lower Front Lawn: 4. Garden Theatre: Back & Forth (9pm-11pm) Night Hike (9:00pm-9:30pm) Telescopes (9pm-11pm)
5. Oval Garden: 9. Front Lawn: Sleeping Area: Please Stellarium (9pm-11pm) respect other guests who wish to Star Stories (9:45pm-10:20pm) sleep or quietly watch the stars.
Starry, Starry Night WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Problems & Emergencies: The Office reception desk will be staffed throughout the night in case of emergency. The First Aid kit and emergency phone are located in the Office.
Front Gate Schedule: Guests are welcome on Montalvo grounds beginning at 6:00pm to set-up sleeping bags on the Front Lawn. Please be aware that the Front Gate will close at 9:30pm on Friday evening and will not open again until 8:00am on Saturday morning. While guests are welcome and able to depart Montalvo’s grounds at any time, those persons choosing to leave the property after 9:30pm may not be readmitted onto Montalvo’s grounds.
Morning Departure Policy: We hope this evening’s excitement and discovery continue home with you in the morning. Please remember to collect all your belongings and artwork when you depart Montalvo’s gardens and grounds by 8:00am.
Child Policy: Montalvo is excited to host a variety of ages for the evening. Please remember that children under age 18 are the sole responsibility of their parent or guardian throughout the event.
Snacks & Breakfast: Concessions, including Vinnie’s Hot Dogs, will be sold at the Pavilion from 6pm-10:30pm. Montalvo will provide free popcorn 9pm-10:30pm when the movies begin. A pancake breakfast for all slumber party guests will be served at the Front Veranda in the morning at 6:45-7:45am. Starry, Starry Night 2010 METEOR OBSERVATION SHEET
Name:
1. Date & Start Time:
2. Your location:
3. Note the condition of the sky at the time you start observing. Include any haze, clouds, other obscurations.
4. Were there any changes to the sky conditions during your observing period?
5.
# Meteors Observed Constellations & Planets Observed 8:00pm
9:00pm
10:00pm
11:00pm
12:00am
1:00am
2:00am
3:00am
4:00am
5:00am
6:00am
7:00am
Starry, Starry Night 2010 TELESCOPE OBSERVATION SHEET
Name:
1. Date & Start Time:
2. Your location:
3.
Name of Object: Name of Object:
Name of Object: Name of Object: