Non-fiction writings: “Rocket Ship”

It is now time to get more “out of my head” than just the abstracts I paint. Many of my abstract paintings start in my head as I formulate what to paint next, followed by a sometimes urgent need to get these paintings I’ve envisioned onto paper.

So, embarking on something new, I’m now part of a non-fiction writing workshop, specifically focused on writing the personal narrative or memoir. Huh. Well, we’ll see where this path takes this painter, but at least I know I’ll get more out of my head and onto paper, which seems to help process my life.

The following is from one of our first writing homework assignments to choose and describe an “object”.

---

David Castle
January, 2024

Rocket Ship

My new rocket ship entered my art collection as a gift this past Christmas. It’s a small sculpture, maybe just five inches tall, and is now part of the gallery of small works that I’ve curated on a wall in my own art studio. My new rocket ship is one of the few pieces I can hold and turn in my hands rather than just park on my wall. My new rocket ship is certainly delicate but also looks and feels sturdy, being made of clay.

Green was once my purple. In the 1970’s, still only girls — and sissies — chose purple as their favorite. Early on, I seemed to know instinctively (and from the budding and alarming cues around me) that choosing purple as my favorite would be a revealing mistake. So, for decades my purple was actually green. And green (mossy green), being nice enough, sufficed for those years that I wasn’t me. Now, I can (mostly) embrace purple as my purple and I love to discover and point out the perfect purples I find around me in my everyday life. 

My new rocket ship features one of those perfect purples – a rather dusty hue with a bit more blue than red with some black mixed in to take that garish grape edge off. The artist choose wonderfully and with restraint, placing this perfect purple on the pointed and rounded nose cone. The perfect purple nose cone is also actually a cap. Upon removal the empty, hollow body is revealed. It’s still empty right now and I wonder what would I put in there? Maybe something green.

The three, classical support struts (or fins) are also this perfect purple while the main rocket body is the natural color of the clay – soft gray with the tiniest warm hint of yellow. The body is  mottled with darker grays and blacks – I’m guessing this is the texture of outer space. Clearly this rocket ship has rocketed before. The overall finish of my new rocket ship is the natural matte of clay. No gleaming glossiness. A focused, black jet engine flange completes the bottom of the rocket body, with the promise of departure to a better elsewhere. 

Finally, the body features a small Colorado flag as its origin identifier. Not the traditional, backwards-flying flag, but one affixed with a proper, landscape orientation that doesn’t cause my head to cock sideways. I feel satisfied that my new rocket ship hails from my native Colorado.

When I hold my new rocket ship (careful with that nose cone cap!), I personally believe it comes with yet another promise of a different “elsewhere” for me. This one being my never-to-be-lived space opera in the inner planets. You see, one day last summer upon exiting one of the really big big box stores, I announced a plan to emigrate to Mars in the first wave of terraforming colonists. I immediately upgraded that plan to actually leading the effort myself. I’d become the first to arrive in a final solution to escaping the horrors of this planet Earth. Around that same time last summer, I remember my fascination as I examined a small display of rocket ship sculptures at a local art festival. Each was a perfect rocket shape – delicate but sturdy enough. Each held that promise of another elsewhere, far away from my current elsewhere. Mars would be quite an elsewhere – literally millions of miles away! I didn’t get to meet the artist who made these wonderful rocket ships that summer day, but he now knows that I love his art… and my new rocket ship.

I do realize that my new rocket ship resembles those of the billionaires with its classic rocket shape. But my new rocket ship is so much sturdier and although empty, holds the promise of a different cargo – me, and those I love. Its shape and perfect purple are most likely impossible for actual space travel (or escaping our Earth). But who cares? Someday I’m going to Mars, along with a lot of perfect purple.

Rocket Ship, by Colorado artist John Randolph Hamilton III