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Paula Rice |
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THE PLANET SERIES For the first time in human history, the vast landscape of space has been brought home to us on Planet Earth. Through images from the Hubble Telescope, and new information from space, we can see for ourselves the incomparable splendor of fierce and silent worlds. I have been studying the planets around the Sun, and the immense and alien wilderness they present to us. They carry with them extremes in temperature and atmosphere impossible to imagine, and instantly hostile to our very lives. We are surrounded by a physical universe in which can be felt a chilling and unsettling indifference to us. Yet, the unfathomable, wild beauty and mystery of the planets calls us forward. In my imaginary ascent to the planets, I am thrown right back into my own mind. There is no one there for us, no one to meet. Who is there but us? My work is a way for me to go to the planets without the physical trip, and to meet myself when I get there. Paula Rice The Planet Series ~ Project Description As an amateur astronomer, I am fascinated by the sky at night. I am fortunate to live in the city of Flagstaff, whose clear skies and high altitude assisted in the discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930. I have joined several astronomy clubs, and have spent many hours looking out of telescopes into the vast, mysterious, and impersonal universe that surrounds us. I have been studying images from the Hubble Telescope. From that has come a sense of chilling indifference to us here on Earth. I seek outward, in a kind of pilgrimage and ascent to the stars, only to be thrown back into myself, where I started, in my mind. My work as an artist uses these experiences as fuel. I have completed a “solar system” of nine figures made mostly from clay. These figurative sculptures represent the planets in our solar system. (I include Pluto, even though demoted from planetary status, in this planetary group.) Each “planet” figure includes new information from space as landscape or surface. New scientific discoveries are included in the postures of each piece as well. “Mars”, for example, is in the process of drinking water from the hand, in acknowledgement of the recent discovery that there has been water on the surface of Mars in the past. My pieces are influenced compositionally by the frontality and sense of stillness of ancient Egyptian figurative sculpture, a sensibility that seems appropriate to planets when I look out at them through a telescope. Mostly, my new work is a way for me to imagine a reality incomprehensively vast, and bring it down to human size. It is a way for me to inhabit these planets myself, and to make human connection where there seems to be none. It is about us here on Earth. For the first time in human history, our sense of place, and the size of our imaginations, has had to stretch to include these worlds. My new work places us in these new surroundings. Note: After years of work on this project, The “Planet Series” set of nine pieces has been completed. It was shown for the first time in April 2009 in a juried, international venue in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramics Arts Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. It was shown in celebration of the International Year of Astronomy at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, from August 5 – September 19, 2009. |
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Paula Rice can be reached at 928.600.1826 |
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© 2006-2011 This site and all its contents are rights protected by Paula Rice. |
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