Heart-felt Symphony
Miranda Unwin
Major: Art
Genre/Medium: Colored Felt, Sewing Thread, Cotton filling, Pipe Cleaner, Velcro
About the work: Heart-Felt Symphony is a 3D interpretation of the multifaceted pieces of the Psyche Mission. Four main elements were chosen to represent the mission, crafted with colored felt and sewing thread. The pieces chosen to represent the mission in felt were: The Psyche Asteroid, the Psyche Spacecraft, the Falcon Heavy Rocket carrying the spacecraft, and the DSN (Deep Space Network) Antenna. I represented these elements with as much accuracy as possible through this interesting medium to the renderings and pictures available through NASA’s database. Each felt character has a unique facial expression created with felt to add fun and humanistic characteristics to the figure. The Psyche Asteroid was carefully shaped and cut out to match the rendering available of the Mission to Psyche’s destination. Each felt figure was cut into a pattern and then stuffed with cotton filling to create a 3D effect. Strips of colored felt were carefully chosen to match the elements of their real-life counterparts. The asteroid Psyche contains strips of silver and copper-colored felt to represent the heavy metals that may be seen on the Asteroid Psyche. The Spacecraft Psyche was crafted with foam felt as a base and then layered in silver-colored felt. A chopstick was used to stabilize and connect the solar panel wings of the craft to the body. The silver pipe cleaner was strewn around the panels of the spacecraft to simulate the radiant energy of space. The DSN antenna is also covered in silver pipe cleaner to simulate the strong bars that support the large dish structure which communicates signals to the Spacecraft Psyche on its Mission. A yellow felt butterfly was also added to the lineup of felt characters to symbolize the Psyche Mission and attributed to the Greek Goddess Psyche. The Mission to Psyche logo was included to represent the multitude of team members involved in making the Psyche Mission possible. All of these felt characters have been velcroed to black sparking felt background placed within a wooden frame. My intention with these felt characters is to make people smile, these figures are meant to be played with, taken on adventures, and enjoyed by all.
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