sky shows

Ode to the Adler Planetarium

 I was lucky to join the ranks in the fall of 1985. i remember it like it was yesterday. by then, my reputation as an astronomical artist was well established through my work as staff artist at Astronomy magazine in the seventies. Dr. Jim Sweitzer, the assistant director at Adler, began commissioning me to create art for an exhibit he was developing called the New Universe. there were a number of original multi-media components. i painted large views of the milky way, the local group and local supercluster. central to the exhibit was three minute Universe, a hundred painting sequence animating the big bang through the formation of the milky way. the images were top projected onto a large circular screen where visitors stood around the circumference and watched the birth of the universe. the exhibit took on the aura of a holo deck. I got used to coming to chicago from my studio in milwaukee, where i freelanced and did some teaching at the milwaukee school of art and design. an agent in chicago would get me work with encyclopedia britannica future annual and science photo library in london . the astronomy magazine office was across the street from my studio. astromedia launched odyssey magazine a new sister publication promoting space science for young people, headed by my favorite editor Nancy Mack. she gave me a free hand to explore the lead feature covers for the early issues. nonetheless when dr. sweitzer called and asked if i would be interested in being staff artist at the Adler, i hesitated. planetariums traditionally had artists on staff, such as helmut wimmer at hayden and vic costanzzo at stasenburgh. i had already been to california, after an introduction by gene roddenberry, i declined the star trek movie, not being interested in the guild system hierarchy. i just missed cosmos, but i was broke and it didn’t  take long for me to come to my senses.

November 11th 1985 was cold, gray, windy and sleeting in chicago, the day i checked into the blackstone hotel on michigan ave. Jim agreed to put me up for a week while i tried to find an apartment. there was no signing bonus, there was no museum campus as it exists today. the only way to adler on foot was through a dark underpass that ran beneath lakeshore drive or take the occasional 146 bus. i punched the time clock at 9am, dr chamberlain’s appointed starting time. joe was a sailor, star navigator and former hayden planetarium director. he reminded me of bob hope. we were always out by six, flex time didn’t exist. he along with the adler family led the effort to bring adler back into private hands. it was formerly controlled by the chicago park district. the change was historic, no longer a patronage plum, he completely modernized the adler planetarium.

The art shop as it was known, was back by the freight elevator in an oblong space that also contained a full wet darkroom. Allen Moore was hired as staff photographer along with me. he knew 4x5 hasselblad cameras and the horizon jig system, all sky masking and kodalith developing for projecting text. he also knew the folks at helix camera in chicago where all the film went to be developed. digital was still an idea to come. there was also a full fledged machine shop up on the mid level near the boiler room. it was a serious shop, lathes, drill presses, grinders, every tool needed to keep the place running. Hans Berens was chief machinist along with Jim Airhart, the special effects maker. hans was from germany. after the war he learned to take the Ziess projector apart and put it back together again, that’s how he got the job at adler. the machine shop was my hangout. we both smoked marlboros and i listened to his stories about the war. he could make anything. i liked watching him work, machine oil and filings piling up on the floor making lens additions to the star projector. jim taught me how to climb up behind the dome to install sfx. astronomer Jim Seevers taught telescope making classes, how grind and polish mirrors, make tubes and mounts. it was a world unto itself and i loved it. it was like a family and it looked like i was going to be a lifer. one of the first thrills was meeting Clyde Tombaugh in 1986 when Halley’s comet was in the sky and he dropped by for a visit. my first horizon painting for the dome was the surface of halley, an educated guess 12 feet long one foot high. i began to paint the universe on the sky theater dome with astronomers and gifted writers guiding the way. it was easy for me to imagine myself a space artist michelangelo because in a way i was. slowly perfecting the sky show craft, along with the many other ways an artist could be useful in a planetarium.

Time space and the searcher are the crescendo of my efforts at the adler.