Found Moon

Remember this one?
"Lost Moon."

I titled it after the book by Jim Lovell. The book is better known as Apollo 13. That movie was impactful to me, made me crazy about space stuff and fuel something of an intense hobby/minor obsession for the better part of the next 15 years. I painted it for the "patriotic" loosely-themed month of July at Art & Soul by Phoebe Gallery. See, right before I painted it, Obama declared that we weren't going back to the moon, at least on his watch.

I love the scene in the movie, after the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, where Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) is standing in his backyard, putting his thumb over the moon and blocking it out. Later, when Apollo 13 is in crisis, his wife, Marilyn, stares up to the moon, knowing that her husband is somewhere there.

I've always enjoyed staring up at the moon. I can point out the Sea of Traquility, the Ocean of Storms, and let's not forget the Bay of Rainbows (the official, less Saturday-morning-cartoon name is Sinus Iridium). The large crater near the bottom of it called Tycho, after astronomer Tycho Brahe, is that one that thas the light colored rays arching away from it. Some nights, its good to just stare up at the moon.

I painted "Lost Moon" as something of a companion to "From The Earth" (that title also tied to the Apollo program and Tom Hanks...points to the best guesser). It was going a step further on the aerosol + acrylic style, using the aerosol to get that awesome smooth glow that is around the moon, and the acrylics to get the texture and the craters of the moon. With "Lost Moon," I referenced those nights that the moon is low and golden and large on the horizon, and those nights when that moon is touched by clouds.

It hung at Phoebe's for the month of July, and was often visited by a blind woman, Dena Polston. Dena has been blind since birth and has never seen the moon. I guess she knows its there, because someone has told her, but she's never been able to stare up at the moon, at Tycho, Tranquility Base, or Mount Marilyn. Dena experiences art by touch, and she touched "Lost Moon." She said that by doing this, she saw the moon for the first time. This kind of blew my mind. I've been saying that alot about this story, but its really the only way to describe it, and it still doesn't completely convey my awe. Awe doesn't even convey how I feel about all of this.

Dena fell in love with that painting, and I couldn't take the moon away from her! So at the end of the month, I told Phoebe that "Lost Moon" was now "Found Moon" and it was also now Dena's. I love and appreciate staring at the moon and to have the chance to give that to a person who has never experienced that was...something more than amazing.

The next time Dena came into the gallery, Phoebe was to give the painting to her. When she finally came in, she brought a poem with her to have Phoebe give to me. Phoebe surprised her by putting the painting into the same hands that had just held the poem. I wish I could have seen that moment.

Dena's poem, coincidently, was also titled "Found Moon." And here it is:

You call to me like an old friend
You touch me beyond mere words
Though I cannot see all that you have to offer
I have an innate feeling that you are meant for me.
I'm drawn to you over and over again.
Like a forged chain inexorably linking the two of us.
I always know right where you are
Every time I return, I have to look and make sure you're still there
You make me dream of romantic places and times
I can't help smiling
Just thinking of songs, poems and other works you've inspired
I'm so glad I found the moon in all its glory
And I'm elated that we have found each other.
-Dena Polston


This whole thing just rocks so much. And I'm still not doing justice to it all. But it still really, really rocks. I could have a piece of my art hang in the Louvre, the White House, or positively critiqued by the best, most highly-regarded art critic in the world, and it still wouldn't measure up to the compliment from Dena that, as far as she is concerned, that painting contains the real Moon, the Moon I look up to in awe.

Thanks Dena!

Next Time: New camera, that mystery painting, a whole bunch of new ones, Clowe's update, injuries, framing, and a coronal mass ejection (...that's the big scientific name for a solar flare!).