Contemporary Petroglyphs

Currently there are three Space Images in the Berkeley Petroglyph: the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Gemini VII capsule. Gemini featured several manned missions into orbit, and like many people of my generation, the early manned missions to space were awe inspiring.

Encoding in the petroglyphs a key to the specific moment in which they were carved is an ongoing challenge. One solution is to use only successful NASA missions from my own lifetime. This petroglyph shows Gemini VII as seen from Gemini VI as they are lined up to dock on December 15, 1965.

When undertaking a carving I ask my patron what images they may like me to carve. I talk to them about their family, their industry, their ancestry to find images and themes. To my surprise, this question is a stumper. So I ask my patrons spouse, kids, grandkids, friends and anybody else, but I typically get negligible input. Initially in Ingomar I received the customary response, but a few days after asking my host’s son, he said, “Can you carve people?”
“I guess so,” I said unenthusiastically.
“Could you carve my grandparents wedding photo?”
“Ah……………………..I guess so.”

A few days later a copy of the photo was brought out to the ranch and I set to work. In the wedding photo the background was very dark, and they both wore very dark colors.. No scanner, no negative. Suffice to say it was a challenge.

The couple were married the same day that the bride arrived from Czechoslovakia. The groom and his brother arrived several years in advance and got adjoining half sections (320 acres each) to homestead. My host’s parents lost the homestead on a seed loan in the 30’s. They leased back the lost section from the state and lived in the homestead until it burned down one Sunday morning. They’d bought an adjoining section to farm in the meantime, and they moved a house from town onto that section just below the hills. They had 8 kids and were married 50 years.

Earlier post of the couple’s hands.
Archival photographic print of the couple’s hands.

In addition to working in the oil fields, my host in Montana farmed. He farmed both summer and winter wheat in strips below the hills where the new petroglyph is carved. His father was the original European settler on that land, and he farmed wheat as well. Now my host’s sons carry on the tradition where there father and grandfather began. Here are some carvings of the men at their work.

Here is my host on the 1970’s John Deere four wheel drive tractor:

Below is my host’s son driving the two wheel tractor pulling his uncle’s drills. The drill is the the mechanism that puts the seeds into the ground. (In ND I carved an air seeder, or “till-less drill” which uses air pressure to force the seeds into the ground thereby not breaking the soil as much)

Below is the view of the two tractors from the top of the rims.

This morning an article on Slashdot about Hubble confirming the observation of a Dutch school teacher inspired me to post my first carving in Berkeley. The image above is the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It was carved in late December 2010 near the ceiling of the garage in which I am working in North Berkeley, CA.

Some people ask me why I carve things like Hubble. The answer is because its *awesome* data offers us unprecedented new understanding (and view) of Nature. One example of this amazing data is the photo, below, of Hanny’s Voorwerp (Hanny’s Object), the green mass at bottom. Hanny is the Dutch schoolteacher.

Credit: NASA/ESA/William Keel, Univ. of Alabama/the Galaxy Zoo team

Detailed post about Hubble and Hanny’s Voorwerp

Above is an image of a petroglyph carved in the hills of Ingomar resident Morris riding Frank.

Above is Morris and Frank again, this time more naturally colored and with a cow. Same carving, different coloring.

Above is an image of an antelope to mark this years hunt. The Mighty Kipper shot a pretty good buck antelope on opening weekend. (This is the first year in 3 years that nobody shot Kip’s truck.)

To compliment Rebecca Horne’s post at the Visual Science Blog at Discover Magazine here is an array of other space petroglyphs I’ve made around the country.

Below are two Space Shuttles carved in North Dakota during the STS-132 mission in May 2010.

This one is on a small bolder near a field approach.

Below is the Shuttle and the Chandra X-ray observatory, both on the Keniston Road in Burke County, ND. The carved images are colored from making impressions (see further below)

This is the ESA’s Jules Verne satellite carved in Telluride, CO

This is an impression of a Jules Verne satellite.

First Shuttle carving:

Below is the Chandra featured at the Visual Science blog. This is the first time I have employed gold leaf (21 and 23 carat) to mimic the materials shielding the observatory.

Everywhere I carve I ask the people who own the land if there are any important family images that might be good to carve. This stumps most people. The son of my current host asked, “Do you carve people?”
“Ah, I guess so”
“How about carving my granpearents?”
“Ah… OK”
So, for the past week I have been working on the grandparent’s wedding photo. They were the original homesteaders of the land where I am working. After the man got set up he sent for the woman in Czechoslovakia. They were married about 95 years ago.

I printed this image, and prints are available for sale here.

This is the son of my host driving the two-wheel-drive tractor.

Today I carved and then painted Lester, the 1955 Chevy step side pickup. It is the fencing mending rig, and it is stocked with tools, wire and posts. It belonged to the son, Lester (or Les), of the Jersey Lilly’s previous owner Bill Seward. I included some of the text written on the trucks side, “Les’s Welding”.

On top of the sand rock is a ‘cap stone’ that is dark brown and quite hard, so it is good for carving. It is sedimentary rock and flakes off in layer from the top down. Most of the ‘cap stone’ is inaccessible but I found one readily accessible place which is big, dark brown, smooth, and easy to find and view.

This image is of two cows and Morris, and Ingomar resident who is a busy and accomplished horseman.