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St. Tammany Parish:
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A Tribute to America's Space Heroes |
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by Jennifer Ervin
To honor America’s fallen astronauts, StenniSphere, the visitor center at NASA Stennis Space Center, commissioned renowned mosaic muralist Elizabeth Veglia to design and create a memorial mural. When completed, the mural will be permanently displayed at StenniSphere in Hancock County, Mississippi.
“I am completely honored to be chosen to memorialize Columbia, Apollo 1 and Challenger,” Veglia says. “It’s such a wonderful thing that the astronauts put themselves out there, literally, for all the rest of us. They’ve given their lives for exploration.”
Although Veglia is no stranger to memorial works—she created a Hurricane Camille memorial in Biloxi—outer space is a new frontier for the talented mosaic tile artist from Hancock County.
“I read books about space and the shuttle,” she says, “so I could have something to work by and figure out how space works.” For example, she uses the tiles’ shape and placement to subtly show the gravitational relationship between the earth and the moon.
Veglia’s luminescent creation began to take shape at a time when NASA—and the rest of America—reflected on its space heroes. As the first anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy approached, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe declared January 29 as Remembrance Day for Columbia (February 1, 2003) and the crews of Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967) and Challenger (January 28, 1986).
To mark the anniversaries, SSC employees and the public took part in the process by placing tiles on the mural under the direction of the artist.
“We felt it was important to not only create a permanent memorial to America’s fallen astronauts, but also to allow our employees, visitors and school children to become part of the process as they remember Columbia and the other lost crews,” said Linda Theobald, NASA public affairs officer at SSC, who developed the idea for the mosaic.
On Remembrance Day, SSC Director Tom Donaldson RDML USN (Ret.) honored the work by laying the first tile. “I can’t think of a better way to personally take part in memorializing these American heroes,” he says.
Veglia, who has directed similar large-scale art projects for 25 years, is known for allowing public participation in her mural projects, working with school groups and communities alike to teach them the mosaic art form. In addition to her Hurricane Camille memorial in Biloxi, one of her most noted works is a hotel mural in Barcelona, Spain.xt
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Copyright 2006, M&L Publishing, all rights reserved. |
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