Russell Crotty. Cassiopeia over Dry Chaparral. 2004. Ballpoint pen and watercolor on paper mounted on fiberglass, Overall: 36" diameter (91.4 cm). The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift. © 2013 Russell Crotty
An amateur astronomer and nature lover, Crotty makes meticulous drawings of night skies viewed through the telescope in his homemade observatory in Malibu, California. Sketching while gazing at the sky, the artist blends scientific objectivity with fiction, creating fantastic forms and bizarre landscapes. In their seeming infinitude his pictures radiate the awe Crotty feels when making his observations. A sense of the sublime is manifest in this globe's installation: viewers are outside the planet's atmosphere, gazing back.