NASA's Art Rides the Rails
A rolling exhibit brings space exploration to small-town America.
- By Constance Bond
- Air & Space magazine, April 2008
It was one of those in-between moments: I was surveying the scene in the parking lot next to the railroad crossing in Taneytown, Maryland, an unspoiled pre-Revolutionary War town of about 5,000 souls. For a while I chatted with Chief Melvin Diggs, who had pulled up next to me in a patrol car to see if I was up to no good. He’d been keeping an eye on the open tents behind me filled with work by local artists. But the main attraction was stretched out behind him on the tracks, raked by the late afternoon sun—the four windowless cars and caboose of Artrain.
Inside the train was an exhibit—78 works of art commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the people who took us to the moon. This was the first stop of a three-year, 48-state tour, and the big track-side opening was to be in a couple of hours. But now the place was deserted. Even the shaved-ice vendor, who’d handed out bright red and purple cones to the local artists while they set up their displays, had taken off. Everybody, it seemed, was home getting ready.
Like many of the 600 communities that Artrain has visited since its birth in Michigan 28 years ago, Taneytown does not have its own art museum. So folks throughout Carroll County—from the local merchants and the owner of Maryland Midland Railway to the arts council and the students of nearby Bowling Brook Academy—had pulled together to make the five-day visit of the non-profit rail-riding museum a success. Even the docents who would welcome visitors to the train were local—all are volunteers taught by an Artrain staff member.
It’s a great idea—using a train to bring art to people who might not otherwise see it. And in fact, “The Artistry of Space”—the exhibition now on board Artrain—was sparked by a similar populist vision. In 1962, NASA Administrator James Webb decided to make artists a part of the space program. For a modest honorarium, they were invited to come to Cape Canaveral or one of the other NASA facilities, bring their drawing or painting tools, have the run of the place with the help of a guide, and then somehow re-create their experiences in art. In the 37 years since, more than 250 artists have documented the Space Age, climbing the huge red gantries that so fascinated them in the early years, trudging through meandering wetlands that surround the launch pads in search of the perfect vantage point, and sitting around with suited-up astronauts in the last minutes before final word to board—all the while sketching, painting, or reflecting on what they’d seen.
Now, with the support of current NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, and under the national sponsorship of Daimler-Chrysler, a selection of these works has been loaned by NASA and the National Air and Space Museum for this rail tour. The traveling collection depicts the Soviet-American race to the moon, voyages to the planets by unmanned spacecraft, and the flights of the space shuttles.
Some of the artists—Norman Rockwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol—are well known; some are not. Some works are in the grand 19th century landscape tradition, such as “The Light Ship” by Attila Hejja, which portrays, amid dramatic billows of steam and a blazing trail, the first night launch of the shuttle Challenger in 1983. Other works are abstract meditations on Saturn’s rings, Neptune’s surface, the Amazon basin as seen from space. There are simple still lifes, such as a graphite rendering of an astronaut’s glove lying palm-down, its subtle wrinkles evidence that space exploration is hard work. There is even a dress, to be viewed with 3-D glasses, by fashion designer Stephen Sprouse, its pattern derived from imagery of the Mars Pathfinder mission. In short, there is—as was James Webb’s intention—something for everyone.
And, judging by the long line that stretched along the tracks the morning after the opening, everyone was there. On the train, people of all ages, some with school-age kids, stood in front of the artworks, talking, pointing, reminiscing.
A retired biologist, Robert Thomas, with whom I had talked earlier, buttonholed me, pulling me over to “The Light Ship.” “That’s what we remember—the impression of power, the steam,” he said with passion, “not the hardware.”
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