FROM THE BERKSHIRES TO THE UNIVERSE

Rick Costello’s astral art delves into ‘Our Place in the Milky Way Galaxy’

BY FELIX CARROLL

STOCKBRIDGE

This summer, Rick Costello, a denizen of dark nights, went public in the light of day. With our whole world in his hands, one painstakingly rendered painting at a time, he set about displaying his artwork in Saint Francis Gallery in South Lee. �

The Milky Way galaxy is seen, in this time-lapse photo, in the night sky over the Berkshires.

PHOTO BY BEN GARVER

Costello — locally famous for educating and blowing the minds of a largely astronomically illiterate population through his public stargazing events — knows his place in the universe. He’s now trying to discover his place in the art world.

In 1998, the year he was told he’d soon be dead, he began painting the first of what has become 32 paintings to date that he calls “Our Place in the Milky Way Galaxy.”

“All of my paintings are astronomically correct,” says Costello, “with every star put on the canvas, one at a time and in its correct location.”

There’s no reason to doubt him. He’s been studying the night sky, star charts and the knowable universe since he was a boy. Binoculars eventually gave way to sophisticated telescopes. Telescopes now vie with paints and brushes for Costello’s time and attention.

NASA commissioned a painting from Costello even before he was prepared to declare himself an artist. That was many years ago. Taking into account the time he’s put into his artwork and the skill displayed, he now boldly goes where he was reluctant to go before, putting price tags upon his pieces that range from $9,000 to $75,000.

“No buyers yet,” says Costello, who rents a one-bedroom apartment in Stockbridge, “but I’m working on that.”

A former parcel delivery man, Costello, 62, spends many of his evenings stargazing and many of his days painting.

Throughout the year, he invites the public to take a gander through the lens of his Meade LX 90 telescope at his favorite stargazing spots, including Baldwin Hill, in Egremont; off New Lenox Road (near the railroad tracks), in Lenox; and the Chestnut Preserve, off Route 7 in Stockbridge.

Rick Costello’s latest painting. “In this scene,” he says, “we are looking in the direction of the center of our galaxy. The dark clouds are nebulae, gasses and dust that block our view from the further away stars behind it.”

PHOTO BY FELIX CARROLL

He says he paints with a single set of critics in mind: astronomers. He imagines them gazing at his artwork — at the nebulae, the star clusters, the pockmarks of our moon, the everything — and declaring, “This guy, Rick Costello, knows what he’s talking about.”

In other words, in his artwork, Costello doesn’t seek to create imaginary worlds or beauty for the sake of beauty. His aim is accuracy, providing a true representation of the star-spangled splendor, perplexing perturbations and the maddening vastness of space, all of which just so happens to be beautiful.

The God of the Bible took six days to create the earth and stars. By contrast, Costello’s first galaxy painting — which includes about 700,000 stars within a 60-inch by 48-inch span — took him more than two years to complete. It’s relevant to note that absent among the many things Costello holds as truth is belief in the God of the Bible. He gave up on that when he was 9 years old. “Nope, not for me,” he says. Still, he jokes, “I know what God went through. It takes a lot to create these paintings.”

When he looks up, he feels both humbled and happy. Why?

When he looks down at the planet he calls home, he worries that our manhandling ways will lead to the extinction of the human species.

Climate change is “a big threat, especially for our grandchildren,” Costello says. “What we’re leaving them is appalling. People aren’t paying attention, whether it’s for political reasons or religious reasons or whatever.”

Among the things he holds as truth? In the six decades that he’s been looking up, Costello says he has, on eight occasions, seen aircraft that are “not ours” — in Connecticut, in Berkshire County, in Vermont. He has been encouraged that the military has begun to openly discuss its own experiences witnessing aircraft whose maneuvers cannot be explained.

Also, among the things he holds as truth is the fact that the first sky painting he did saved his life.

In the 1990s, he had become a dabbler in the arts, painting nature scenes of the terrestrial variety: sunsets, ocean scenes, mountains. “But I never got any satisfaction when I finished them,” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, whatever.’”

Then, in 1998, he contracted a deadly strain of the flu. He said he became so dehydrated that he lost about 40 pounds within five days. His health spiraled down from there. He lost blood flow into his heart, which led to a heart attack. The damage was so severe, he said, that doctors in a Connecticut hospital told him he would be dead within six months.

After several weeks in the hospital, he went home and didn’t die. Instead, he figured out what he really wanted to paint: the universe, with the earth and moon in the foreground set against a roiled swatch of the Milky Way band. Using a NASA photograph and star charts, he embarked on his journey. After six months, he still wasn’t dead.

“I kept telling myself, ‘You can’t die until you finish this,’” Costello says. “I basically worked eight to 18 hours a day for more than two years. I took off two months in the middle because I was going nuts. I’d close my eyes and only see stars.”

Not that that’s such a bad thing. He’d like more people to see stars, whether through a telescope, through art at Saint Francis Gallery, or through the images beaming back from the James Webb

Space telescope. “I think, personally, it would just help humanity if people understood the universe,” he says. “I think it’s hard to act really intelligent if you don’t know the place you’re living in. He pauses.

“I just enjoy looking up,” he says. “Of course, now when I look up at the sky, I see my paintings.” ■

This is Rick Costello’s first painting of outer space. It is 60 inches by 48 inches and was done with oil and acrylic. “It is a scene of our Earth and Moon, with a small section of the Milky Way band as the background.” It contains about 700,000 stars, each one “put on the canvas one at a time, taking two-plus years to complete,” he says. He credits this painting for saving his life.

PHOTO BY FELIX CARROLL