The Space Option Needs Your Support
The Space Option is humanity’s most optimistic path to the future.
If you would like to add comments to the website and participate in our e-mail discussions you may subscribe on a monthly basis (details to follow) or purchase one of my available AstroArtworks. You can pay CHF 1.00 – CHF 5.00 or CHF 10.00 per month for one year.
ArtFund the Space Option
ArtFunding is a form of crowdfunding which means that people can purchase artworks to support a particular art project. It is also a way for people to identify with a project and to become personally involved. As “art” is one of the most expensive commodities in today’s society, art interventions such as those under development on this and on the Greater.Earth websites will be primarily funded through the sale of art. This avoids the over commercialization of the typical sponsoring approach to such cultural manifestations.
Art funded projects have a long history. A good example of multi-million dollar artist funded projects have been those undertaken by Christo and Jean-Claude – i.e. the Wrapped Reichstag (1971-1995) which cost $15,000,000 to realize was financed solely through the sale of artworks made and managed by the artists.
I have used an ArtFunding approach to fund my various art-in-space projects for more than 40 years, even before the Internet and the social media was prevalent and before the known first use of online “crowdfunding” in 1997. In the mid 1980’s, during the development of the early O.U.R.S. projects, public painting events were organized at international space and art events, where the public was invited to paint on large walls of Mylar. The painted Mylar material was then cut into small squares and sold as “pieces of the ring”.
To finance the spaceflight of the Cosmic Dancer to the Mir space station which cost approximately $100,000, I created 99 versions of the Cosmic Dancer sculpture, which were made available to space enthusiasts and to art collectors. Each Cosmic Dancer was the same exact size and material (square aluminum tubing) as the flight sculpture and was painted in my pointillistic painting technique. Each sculpture was finished in a different color scheme making each of the 99 versions a unique and original artwork. These sculptures were offered to the public through art galleries and through advertisements in the print media. A few of the Cosmic Dancers are still available on this website.
The following art items are currently available. New items will be added as they become available.
These Digital Fine Art Prints are 8-colour inkjet images printed with an Epson Stylus Photo R2400 printer with UltraChrome K3 pigment inks on 192 g/m2 Epson Archival Matte Paper (also called Giclée prints) or on special handmade papers.
Each print comes in various sizes and is hand-signed by the artist.
Personal Singularity Fine Art Prints
Cosmic Dancer Digital Fine Art Prints
Greater Earth Digital Fine Art Prints
The Cosmic Dancer sculpture was the first three-dimensional art work specifically designed for a space habitat that was officially sent into space. Its mission was to investigate the properties of sculpture in weightlessness and to explore the process of integrating art into humanity’s space program – in space.
Launched on May 22, 1993 to the Russian Mir space station, the Cosmic Dancer was on the Mir station for a number of years until the Mir space station was de-orbited in 1991. The original Cosmic Dancer was never returned from space.
A few examples of this truly unique astronautical artwork are available directly from this website.
Project Drawings/Collages
Original project drawings with collage elements made for the O.U.R.S. Project. Each artwork is signed and dated by the resident artist Arthur Woods.
These works dating from 1986 are a combination of drawing and collage including paper elements and painted Mylar. They were the first conceptional studies made for the Orbiting Unification Ring Satellite (O.U.R.S.) would be constructed in orbit using Mylar an ultralight and reflective material.
Many thanks for your support!
Arthur Woods, 2019