The Saturn V Rocket will be wrapped for 60 days in total, May and June 2011.

Once the wrap is removed from the Saturn V Rocket, we hope to continue inspiring schools, groups, and individuals around the world with the efforts and dreams of our participants. Our plan is to schedule a multiple year tour to museums, galleries, libraries and children’s museums. The tour would contain participant’s panels along with their stories and documentation of the completed project including a short film. We might even be able to include original wrappings of the rocket fins or of the capsule on top. My goal would be to show these in as many countries and states as possible. Of course with a project of this magnitude, we feel that the panels, the wrap itself, and the message it hopes to inspire will have a much broader and far reaching life through print, video, and electronic media. My vision is to publish various books on the project, with inclusion of the images of submitted panels and their stories. The Dream Rocket also has applied to Guinness World Records for the tallest structure to be completely wrapped with a quilt. We hope to hold this record and to have the wrap be included in various Guinness World Record publications.

Upon receiving many panel submissions, we were so impressed by the work which went into the panels and their accompanying stories that we felt it would be wonderful to provide a more intimate viewing across various places, and venues. The shows will be juried; however we have been successful in getting the majority of the submitted panels into shows. The venues themselves will determine how many panels they can display and in what mode they can accommodate their display. Other requests from the venues will of course be respected. We have tried to provide a variety of venues from ones which are more child oriented to others which are more craft oriented or to the general public. A further goal is to display some panels close to the area from which they originated. Included in the displays will be the accompanying stories from the individual panels, as well as an overview of the entire project. Participants will be notified of their panel’s inclusion in any venue. Presently, we have 14 venues committed but we could add more as the project develops.

This is a good question because we do have a lot of panels which are submitted by groups such as guilds, Girl Scout troops, families, and schools. First, the group might decide on a specific dream theme although it is not required that the themes be completely clear or literally realized. The themes are just suggestions which may help to jump start a conversation about our dreams for the future. Because of the option for using various mediums on the panels, it leaves open the possibility of many different approaches for groups, other than just that of a lone person sitting at a sewing machine. The panels can be painted, crocheted, stitched, knitted, and even collaged. However we do not take any paper products, but remember - plastics make for a great recycling dream theme. Modern photographic printing techniques on fabric allow many different avenues for group collaboration. Some groups have divided their panel into sections with each individual doing a small panel which is then combined with the others relating to a common theme. Or, in another approach the individual parts could be more dispersed yet more integrated into a larger design. In some schools, students have each picked a theme, made individual designs, and then chose one to develop. One can see how this might mirror the development of the Saturn V Rocket which was itself a massive collaboration, perhaps as many as 500,000 people made specific components while others designed integrated systems; analogous perhaps parallel processing. Maybe, I have a personal bias for dividing the panel into individual components so that each person has their own platform; for that is what the wrap itself exemplifies.

Of course at present, our main focus is with realizing the wrapping of the Saturn V. Documenting panels on the rocket should be relatively easy compared to the wrap itself. It our previous projects are any indication, thousands of photos will be taken of the wrap by professionals and individuals. We plan to have a wrap map and telescopes on site for people. I have also spoken with an individual who has a miniature helicopter which carries a video and a still camera on board. That may be another option. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that thousands if not millions of people who view this wrap will be viewing it through the internet and other media, unable to visit the wrap in Alabama. For this reason, it is important to remember that we are photographing each panel and posting it, along with its story, on our Flickr account; accessible through the Dream Rocket website.

As a student, both in undergrad and in graduate school, my main focus was in sculpture. I was drawn to using textile techniques and fiber materials in nontraditional ways within the sculptures which I produced. I remember at a certain point as a student and artist feeling disconnected from the world. My sense of apartness came from a sense that only a select group of friends, professors, and family members ever saw my artwork. Its impact seemed less empowering, less important, and very inward. While traveling and teaching in India during graduate school, I realized how truly powerful the arts and crafts are to cultures all around the globe, and how they are interwoven with the daily lives of those peoples. I began questioning the relationship to and expression of art in one’s life. This questioning drove me to the path I was to follow with the International Fiber Collaborative. Through the Gas Station project in Syracuse, NY and the Tree Project in Huntsville, AL, I was able to reach out to people all over the world to bring their efforts together in a joint collaboration. The pull of this interaction with people from all cultures and stations in life proved irresistible to me. It’s always an exciting moment to open a package from a faraway place and to read the story of why that person chose to participate. Sometimes they are heartbreaking stories. Other times, they seem to connect with an innocent joy in life. Then, I try to visually weave them into a larger narrative.

In a manner, one might see art as man’s protoscience. Some of the earliest examples we have of man’s attempt to explain, to communicate, and to determine his world are the art and artifacts he left behind. Perhaps they exemplify his first awareness of a past and a future beyond the all encompassing present. Through time, we have developed science and technology to explain and shape our world. But, we have not strayed that far from our ancestors urge to create and to shape. One might see this process as having turned full circle as we are dazzled by the images of our universe provided by the Hubble telescope. Speaking of this project, University of Alabama in Huntsville President David Williams said, “A crucial element of both art and technology is the importance that creativity plays in both disciplines for the benefit of society. We applaud Professor Marsh’s initiative to bring together the dreams of a world through artistic elements and tie those inspirations to one of the most enterprising engineering projects in history.” The Saturn V moon Rocket is the ideal example of achieving a dream that was considered “impossible.” By wrapping it with our dreams, it is an inspiring visual reminder that any dream can come true. If we can work together to put man on the moon, we can achieve the future of our dreams.

People seem to think of the space program as just human beings in space, but it is so much more than that. It affects our daily lives from a fisherman at sea, to a researcher communicating with a colleague around the globe, and even to a family sitting at home watching TV. There are countless products and processes which have benefited from the space program. Future space enthusiasts will discover things of which we have not yet dreamed. But, my interest lies with the broader terrain of education in general; science and technology being a vitally important part of that. We cannot know where the future will take us, but we are empowered by communication, education and even art, that most human of qualities, to take us there. We need them all.

Obviously, I am not a scientist, but the work of the International Fiber Collaborative would be impossible without the Internet and satellite technology. They have allowed me to bring together people from across the globe to participate in collaborative art project. So, my interest is very close and practical. As an artist, one surveys both one’s personal and one’s external landscape for places to connect. Upon moving to Huntsville as a visiting professor, somehow I couldn’t overlook the largest rocket on the planet.