My Clay Sculpture Series ‘Unidentified Intergalactic Rovers (UIR)’

Leonardo, Vol. 14, No.2, pp. 125-127. 1981. Printed in Great Britain. 0024-094X1811020125-03 $02.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd., MY CLAY SCULPTURE SERIES ·UNIDENTIFIED INTERGALACTIC ROVERS (UIR)' Nina Holton* 1. The Space Age, now in its fourth decade, is the fulfillment of an ancient dream that might be called 'We Are Leaving!' Rovers repose on the Moon, an automated laboratory is on Mars, probes have been sent to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and many artificial satellites, serving astronomy, meteorology, surveillance , etc., orbit the Earth. Manned Earth-orbiting stations are functioning, and plans have been proposed for manned laboratories on the Moon and on Mars, and even the establishment of human settlements in extraterrestrial space is considered within the realm of the possible. Another dream might be called 'There Are Others Out There!' Searches for extraterrestrial intelligent beings and attempts to communicate with them are under serious consideration, even though their existence is still a subject of controversy. The biologist George Wald has asserted that 'there is good reason to believe that we live in an inhabited universe that has life all over it' [1]. Several visual artists have described in Leonardo the artworks they have made in response to the events of the Space Age [2-7]. Nevertheless, I find it surprising that the fantastic development of space exploration and of astronautical technology have engaged the imagination of relatively few painters and sculptors. Evidently , many artists in industrial societies do not appreciate the implications for humans of the realization of the first dream and of the consequences that would stem from the verification of the second one. It is true that some artists are more intrigued by catastrophic 'space wars', science fiction monsters and hypothetical Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). As to UFOs, artists generally limit themselves to cigar and disk forms. Is it that they cannot avoid the tedious sexual symbolism that has become a dominant visual conception, especially in the U.S.A.? My musings on matters related to space exploration became suddenly concrete when I spent several months in California. In San Francisco, where the North American continent ends in the West, a remarkable amount of energy is expended in frenzied efforts to solve human difficulties by means of ever-new 'cures'. This time, I found much attention being focused on two 'gurus', a man and a woman of middle-age, who promised to lead humans to a happier life. They called themselves simply HE and SHE. They made newspaper headlines for weeks and attracted crowds of young and old wherever they went along the west coast. The message they preached was that happiness prom- *Seulptor, 14 Trotting Horse Drive, Lexington, MA 02173, U.S.A. (Received 28 Nov. 1979) ised by the esoteric Esselin, Est and Encounter Groups was a delusion and that true happiness could be achieved only by travelling from the Earth to another planet that they had chosen. HE and SHE asked their followers to assemble in the State of Oregon on a certain day, where they said a spaceship would be awaiting them. 500 people actually came, only to be informed that the spaceship had not arrived, because it was detained somewhere. The report on these people dreaming of leaving their planet gave me the idea for the series of sculptures I shall describe. (I have discussed an earlier series of my sculpture in Leonardo [8].) 2. What a theme for a series of imaginary vehicles for transporting beings across space and on the surface of other planets! I thought of the shining array of galaxies, each perhaps with its own civilizations that have developed space vehicles and planetary Rovers. What Fig. 1. (Top) 'UIR (Unidentified IntergalacticRover), No.4', terracotta, 58 x 35em, 1977; (bottom) 'UIR, No.2', high-fired clay, 53 x 27em, 1978. 125 126 Nina Holton Fig. 2. (Top) 'UlR, No. 23', high-fired clay, 46 x 18cm, 1977: (bottom) 'UlR, No.9', high-fired clay, 51 x 37 em, 1978. Fig. 3. (Top) 'UlR, No.5', high-fired clay, 58 x 30cm, 1978; (bottom) .UlR, No. 1'. high-fired clay, 51 x 25em, 1979; (Collection of Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S...