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.