This year's Art of Planetary Science exhibition, held October 17-19, 2014, was an astounding success! More than 90 artists and scientists participated (up fifty percent from last year), and the exhibition displayed over 200 pieces of artwork. A variety of mediums were represented, including paintings, drawings, digital prints, textiles, sculpture, glasswork, poetry, and film. A range of professional levels was also represented, from students in various planetary science undergraduate level courses, to professional artists who own their own galleries. Artists who participated were primarily local to Arizona, but some came from as far away as Tennessee and New York.The show went over an entire weekend this year, drawing a crowd over more than 800 visitors.The UA Astronomy Club also set up telescopes on the mall for stargazing during the opening night. By directly connecting potential buyers and sellers, many artists sold artwork at the event, resulting in ~$9000 worth of sales.

The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.Tucson is uniquely suited to bringing together the art and science communities to share and be inspired by what we do, and those communities have made it clear they would like to see this event become a fixture for art and education outreach. Overall, the success achieved by The Art of Planetary Science, even only in its second year, has really been inspiring to the organizers, the art community, and the general public. It has also put the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in the spotlight for providing unique and quality science outreach.

This year, the Art of Planetary Science was run by graduate students Jamie Molaro, James Keane, Sarah Peacock, Hannah Tanquary, and Ethan Schaefer.They formed new collaborations with Flandrau Science Center, providing show-goers half off admission to the planetarium.They also held a pre-show event hosted by Borderlands Brewing Co. to help promote, and arranged for artwork from the show to be displayed at Biosphere 2 and Skybar, as well as at Craft Tucson and the Tucson Museum of Art’s Art on Tap: Art, Music, and Beer Fest. A subset of the artwork will also be displayed in the exhibit hall during the Division for Planetary Sciences 2014 Annual Meeting. The show was featured on the front page of the Arizona Daily Star, in The Daily Wildcat, UANow, and on the SideStreets Podcast.

A number of artists have generously donated work to the department, including Cui Jing (who won Best in Show), Barbara Penn, Dante Lauretta, Alex Harrison Parker, Philip Christensen, and Adrian Cornejo (who won second place in the Data category).Thanks to the support of Dr. Swindle and the department, additional equipment was purchased to extend the amount of art featured at the show, filling the Kuiper atrium as well as the fourth and fifth floors. Dr. Joe Spitale hand-made and donated the custom designed brackets used to hang the artwork. Funds were donated by the HiRISE and OSIRIS-REx teams, as well as the Space Imagery Center (SIC), to print spectacular spacecraft images for the show, which will be hung in LPL and the Drake Building. Maria Schuchardt in the SIC provided invaluable support in preparing for the event.The competition aspect of the exhibition was sponsored by a number of local businesses. Prizes were donated by Borderlands Brewing Co., Bookman’s, Arizona Art Supply, Biosphere 2, Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium, Pima Air and Space Museum, Posner's Art Store, Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory, and The Loft Cinema. The competition was juried by Dr. Travis Barman, Dr. Renu Malhotra, and Teri Pursch.

See pictures and details of the event on the Art of Planetary Science site.