Aurora teacher's art featured in the International Space Station after winning national contest
DENVER (KDVR) — An Aurora teacher created a piece of art that is literally out of this world.
Thad McCauley is a kindergarten through eighth-grade art teacher at Aurora Frontier P-8 school. When not teaching the kids, McCauley told FOX31 that he likes to spend his free time creating his own art.
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He has worked on many projects as a professional artist but recently created a piece that caught the eye of some cosmic collectors. McCauley won the Space Art Contest, a national competition that would see the winner's art featured in the International Space Station.
He said in an email interview that he heard about the contest from his fellow teacher at Frontier, Linda Newman, who was watching the news with her students.
McCauley initially thought the competition was only for students and immediately told his art class about the opportunity. His fifth and sixth-grade students all created their best 'life in space' art projects and submitted some of them in the contest. All the students' art was then hung up on walls around the school.
While helping his students submit their entries, McCauley discovered that he could also get in on the fun, as the competition had a section dedicated to art educators.
'I knew I needed to enter,' said McCauley. 'I have loved space since I was a little boy and like many kids growing up in the eighties, had dreams of becoming an astronaut. I specifically wanted to be the first artist astronaut in space.'
McCauley gathered his modern pen and paper, an iPad and a stylus, and drew his idea in the Procreate application. Nearly an hour later, he had created his interpretation of life in space, featuring an astronaut riding a rocket skateboard in space.
'My favorite highlight is the light of the sun gleaming off the space helmet visor,' said McCauley.
McCauley entered his drawing into the contest and said over a long period of time he completely forgot about his submission. It wasn't until he received an email nearly a year later saying that an art piece had been chosen as a winner that reality seemed to dissipate into a dream.
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He didn't know whether it was him or one of his students that had been selected. He would remain in the dark until the full winner announcement to the public. He checked the Space Art Contest website and on the front page, against the background of the Earth and stars, saw his very own art piece sitting aboard the ISS in the observatory windows.
'An instant sense of joy washed over me and I felt like that seven-year-old kid again that dreamed of being an astronaut,' McCauley wrote.
When the display period wraps up, McCauley will have his printed drawing in the ISS sent back down to Earth so he gets the artwork that has touched outer space.
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