Jim Fagan
Popular local artist Fiona Groom is still coming down to earth or, maybe more appropriately, she’s over the moon.
The reason: A video of her in her studio starting and completing a painting of two emus is in the space capsule Odysseus which touched down last Friday on Malepart, a crater near the South Pole of the Moon.
“I’m so excited. It’s like living in a sci fi movie but it’s real,” she told Noosa Today when we called the next day to congratulate her.
Launched by NASA (the first US Moon landing in more than 50 years), Odysseus is the first in a series of time capsules to the moon and beyond. The series is called the Lunar Codex and, when completed, will contain the work of 30,000 artists, musicians, authors and other creatives from 157 different countries.
U.S. astrophysicist and best-selling author Dr Samuel Peralta is the mastermind behind the project. He sees it as “a message in the bottle of the future.”
So how did Fiona (63) and her emus merit space on the capsule?
“Five years ago, a New South Wales artist, Graeme Stevenson, produced a documentary TV series called ‘Put Some Colour in Your Life’ featuring artists in their studios.
“He came to my studio and while I talked to him, I created the painting. He also took some more images of my work.
“I understand the series was distributed worldwide on TV and Foxtel to millions of viewers and featured and hundreds of artists, with film teams in Australia, New Zealand, USA and the UK.
“Only last year he sent me a message saying, ‘Hi, you are going to be on the Moon.’
“I said, ‘Whaat!’ and he said he had negotiated with Samuel Peralta to include the 301 episodes of ‘Put Some Colour in Your Life” in the Lunar Codex and I was one of them.”
Painting all thinks furry and feathered has been her life. “I don’t do people. I have a need to get things down on the canvas, to express them. They just develop in front of my eyes. I love the fact I don’t really know what they are going to do. They just evolve and I love that.
“That is what pushes me on — to keep creating. It’s fun. People always smile when they look at my work. Animals are fun. They are not serious. That’s what I like to bring in my art.
“I still can’t fathom the fact that I’m sitting here right now talking to you and that my work is on the Moon with video footage of me painting and talking, it’s just weird. It’s so far out.”
Fiona’s studio is in Ninderry and she is well known in Noosa art circles. She works at Cooroy Butter Factory Arts Centre gallery and is a volunteer with Noosa Open Studios and Pomona Railway Galleries where she arranges exhibitions and contributes paintings.
She has been a guest tutor with the Tinbeerwah Art Group (TAG) for the last five years and she was with the artists on Friday watching the live feed of the Odysseus Moon landing.
Said committee member Jan Cooke: “We were all excited to share this momentous occasion with Fiona. She is an exceptionally talented artist and tutor and is always introducing us to new techniques.
“TAG is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and who could have imagined that we would be tutored by an artist whose work has landed on the Moon!”
Said Fiona: “We had cake and everything was really good. It was a bit of fun. I had a space helmet so I put it on and when I walked in the door, everyone burst out laughing.
NOTE: Here’s the link to the video with Fiona made with Graeme Stevenson: www.youtube.com/watch?v=glxbvZyWTRQ
