Children at Halifax Health send art into space

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Three-year-old Chloe Chapman wiggled as her mom, Trina Hull, painted the child’s hand deep neon pink with a bright yellow starburst in the middle. Then Hull gently pressed Chloe’s hand on a piece of white canvas-like fabric, leaving her daughter’s mark on outer space.

Chloe’s handprint, along with pieces of fabric and postcards painted by other children in the Betty Jane France Center for Pediatrics of Halifax Health Medical Center, are now on their way to the International Space Station, thanks to a project spearheaded by retired NASA astronaut and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University alum Nicole Stott.

On Monday, Stott visited with the pediatric patients while they painted pieces of fabric that will be sewn together to form a colorful spacesuit. The children also painted postcards that will be sent to the space station.

Art has special significance to Stott, who is the first person to ever make a painting in space.

“I think art is the universal communicator,” said Stott. “With this Space Suit Art Project and now with the postcards to space and opening it up to more and more kids around the world I think what we’re doing is showing a planetary way — a global earthling kind of way — we can all come together and work on something fun but at the same time be thinking about our future, too.”

The Space Suit Art Project has previously featured three space suits painted by cancer and pediatric patients across the globe. This newest space suit, named Exploration, will be sent to the International Space Station digitally, said Stott.

“We can’t count on getting this physically to space so what we’re doing this time — which I think will be even cooler — is we’re going to have the space suit as the center focus of the story we are going to do about Earth,” said Stott.

The project, Stott explained, entails building a digital story art project, with the colorful space suit as the focus. The art project will be sent digitally into outer space and projected on the inside — and hopefully the outside — of the International Space Station.

“We will be able to videotape that happening and then the kids will see their artwork in space as part of a bigger story than just their one piece,” said Stott.

Some of the younger patients participating on Monday didn’t quite understand the gravity of the project. But the time for art was a welcome relief from the medical tests, medications and surgeries that accompany time in the hospital.

“It’s good to take an unfortunate set of circumstances and turn it into something they will remember for the rest of their lives. It’s really a cool thing,” said Halifax Health CEO Jeff Feasel.

Hull’s eyes filled with tears as she watched Stott interact with her daughter.

“I think it’s exciting. She doesn’t know what’s going on but she likes it,” said Hull. “It’s something I can tell her about when she’s older, tell her you participated in something that’s going to go into space — her brothers are going to be really jealous.”

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