Neon Space

This is from a long series of small space pictures in my standard format, which I did in 1991. That year seems to have been a "banner year" for small space pictures, and I remember turning them out by the dozen with my airbrush and spatter paint. I showed them in lots of places. This one went to "DeepSouthCon" which was in Knoxville, Tennesee that year. I also brought some of them personally to places like Chattanooga and Dalton, Georgia where I made lots of friends among the Southern fans. I had not been down to the "real" South before and I enjoyed it a lot, and I've kept up with at least a few of my Southern fan friends in Tennessee and Georgia and South Carolina.

The picture shows filaments of glowing gas in a hot nebula. Since neon lights are also glowing gas, I titled it "Neon Space." The nebula gas is not neon, though; most nebulae are made of hydrogen, maybe with a little oxygen too.

My records show that I sold this picture for only 10 dollars, to a fan friend who has long since gone beyond the Galactic Rim. I often wonder what happens to the art collection of a fan who dies. Many fans do not have traditional families to leave things to. What was the fate of this picture and the other ones by me and other artists, which this person once owned? Many of them were never framed by the collector and may have been destroyed. Maybe it will turn up someday in a thrift shop or junk shop somewhere in east Tennessee.

"Neon Space" is acrylic on illustration board, 7" x 10", June 1991.