Murals

Two public art commission murals with a constellation theme,
Touch the Stars and Two Bears and Variations are shown below.

Touch the Stars (1997)

Photo: Jeff D. Goldman

Acrylic on plaster relief mounted on board, 9' x 24' x 8"
Garrett Heights Elementary School, Baltimore, Maryland
Commissioned by the Department of Education under the Percent for Art Program

The theme of this mural is the seven-star constellation most Americans call the Big Dipper, as it is known in different cultures and different eras around the world. The mural was designed to be accessible to the 10 per cent of the school's students who are in a program for the visually impaired. Click on the individual panels within the image above to view details and information about the constellations and the cultures that named them.

Two Bears and Variations (1993)

Photo: Helen Glazer

View paintings related to this mural.

Exterior latex on cinderblock wall, 28' x 60'
1224 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland
Commissioned by the Mayor's Committee on Art and Culture

This mural also has a constellation theme: each of the three panels portrays a different legend or name associated with the stars scientists call Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the Great Bear and the Little Bear). In the center is the Big Dipper and Little Dipper and on the right is Three Leaps of the Gazelle, an Arab legend in which the three pairs of stars in the Bear's paws represent the leaps of the gazelle as it escapes from the constellation Leo.

The mural has been featured in an article on the Baltimore mural program in Baltimore Magazine (2001) and was pictured in the Letters section of the January 2003 issue of the astronomy magazine Sky and Telescope. The photo was submitted by Herman M. Heyn, Baltimore's "Street Corner Astronomer," who participates in an annual mural tour of the Baltimore Bicycling Club. In the photo, he is shown pointing out astronomical features to the cyclists. View the photo and letter here.

Two Bears and Variations has also been a stop on the Baltimore Mural Bike Tour sponsored by Monumental Bike Tours and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts.

For Commissioning Information Contact: helen@helenglazer.com
All images, text and web design © Helen Glazer 1993-2012. All rights reserved.
References: E.C. Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991; Julius D.W. Staal, The New Patterns in the Sky: Myths and Legends of the Stars, Blacksburg, VA: McDonald and Woodward, 1988.