SEPTEMBER 25
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SUN FLAKE, 2012
22" x 30", Digital Print, $7,500
KALTENBACH ANNOTATIONS: This is an alternate plan to collect solar energy. Solar panels would work constantly beaming electrical energy to the Earth. Because this is also an art work for the evening sky, the orbit should be such that the scale would be large enough to appear at least twice the lunar diameter.
There has been a study indicating that we have, (mostly within the last couple centuries,) burnt approximately one half of our underground biomass, the bequest of the dinosaurs and the plants they ate and snoozed under. As they won't be giving us any more, the plan we need is one to convince Big Oil that there is a great deal of money to be made in producing solar power and other alternative sources of energy.
This work is a good but funny example of how my artist's ego works. When this piece came to mind, I was well satisfied that it was a product of my imagination. I call this the pride of origination. Then one day I was rereading a favorite science fiction book titled Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold. I had first read it maybe three decades before. In it is an orbital power station called a Starflake - so much for my originality. I comfort myself, "Oh well, everything finally becomes anonymous anyway."
WORKS THAT RELATE TO SUN FLAKE:
EVERYTHING IS FINALLY ANONYMOUS, 1995
22" x 30", pastel on paper, $7,500