Art Letter 3: Outer Space Doesn't Care About Your Horoscope
This month’s art letter is about our ludicrously insignificant place in the universe.
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
-Edgar D. Mitchell, Astronaut
Does anyone say it better than that guy? I think not. Go Eddie.
NEW OUTER SPACE PRINTS!
Just a sweet little run of ‘em. They come in stupid adorable 4” frames, and are available plain or augmented with a vulnerable sense of humor. I thought, “What would I hang on my own wall?” And all of the following messages ensued:
These are digital laser prints on mohawk vellum, made at a professional local print shop. That translates to NICE but not WOWZERS. These are made for home and for gifts. The solar system jungle image above is available as a Giclee print. That type of printing is WOWZERS. It is like, “Hey, let me stroke your eyeballs with my velvety richness.” Because you know what? I believe the world’s walls need both regular pants and fancy pants.
Here are some artists who I feel capture the strange magic of that big black dome over our sleepy heads:
Betsy Walton’s Other Worldly Worlds
Amanda C Marino’s Watercolor Planets
Kay Nielsen’s Fairy Tale Illustrations
ON TO THE SILLY STUFF
Do you like to read your horoscope? I find them offensively generic. Like fortune cookies (Oh! If I could write fortune cookies! The kung-pao chicken that would fly from your guffawing mouths!).
I turned 36 in May. (Any bulls out there wanna bump horns?) Instead of feeling more self-aware, I feel like a soggy piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my own shoe. Who am I? What am I doing here? What tree was I pulped from? The more we know the less we know, is that it?
I made a flowchart-horoscope, to help us all pigeonhole ourselves. Thought you were a Gemini? Think again my friends!
KANTALOUPE - Your heart is so juicy it drips all over everything you touch, but you can’t help but gallop away from intimacy. Go to the produce market and smell some melons. The first person you make eye contact with is destined to be your radical new LSD therapist.
CUMULOSAURUS - Feet in the clouds and your head in a puddle, you don’t have a clue where you are in life. That’s alright. Go to a cafe and order a London Fog, then kiss the barista smack on the lips. It’ll either lead to love or jail time, and either one is bound to be exciting.
VULVINI - You have fought against your nocturnal instincts your entire life. How frustrating! Get a good blanket and lay out under the next full moon. The shooting stars you see throughout the night are morse code for what animal you’ll be in the next life.
MIBLUS - Everyone knows when you walk into a room. You’re big, bold, and potent as fermented fish sauce. It’s time to run for political office. Go challenge your current state representative to a thumb war and sit in their desk chair when you win.
PLAPPITARIUS - Well aren’t you a cute little thing? Do you even need a horoscope? Naw. Do some star gazing and take a nap.
DODICES - Sneaky creature, you. A CIA spy all these years. Pull out that suicide molar, catch a fishing boat to Vancouver Island and take the leash of the golden retriever waiting for you at Yuquot. Freedom awaits.
RAINICORN - You’ve always been told you were special, and you never knew what that really meant. Guess what? Your brain is the map to the lost city of Atlantis. Go get an MRI while chewing on sardines, and the resulting scan will lead to treasure.
If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, dabble down the Secret Language of Relationships, which will irritate the earwax out of you for how on point it can be.
ANYWAY, OUR PARTING IMAGE
is of the glorious Grand Central Terminal ceiling.
Once upon a time I had an architect boyfriend (before I’d met the glorious C), whom I took to GCT because I loved it so much. He snubbed his nose at the place, which I took personally. It’s a marvelous mosh pit of elegance, humanity and body odor.
More importantly, did you know that the painters of the celestial ceiling painted it BACKWARDS?!? That’s a helluva whoops. So whatever you messed up on today, just remind yourself, it’s nothing compared to whoopsing the ENTIRE CEILING OF NEW YORK’S LARGEST TRAIN STATION.
Til next month,
XO,
Khara