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Starr Earthwork 2002 Updates News Coverage Peace Banners Fear/Fun Multi-Media

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Mapping the Starr Earthwork Design GPS

Photo: Kevin Hare / The Battle Creek Enquirer
Kevin Hare / The Battle Creek Enquirer
Dave Lemberg, left, and Rolland Fraser, both geography teachers at Western Michigan University, chart out one of the stars in the Starr Earthwork design in a cornfield west of Albion, Mich., with a GPS unit attached to Fraser's back. Project organizers are using agriculture, science and art to create the 37-acre work that when finished will have 15 linked moons on the perimeter of the field to create a giant circle and 10 stars inside that circle.

ALBION -- A 37-acre field is undergoing a transformation -- but farmer Mike Murphy isn't planting a new crop. He's helping create a massive art project to promote world peace.

Murphy used his tractor Thursday to mow stars into the field.

"The shape of it is now becoming real apparent," Murphy told the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Project organizers are using agriculture, science and art to create the work. The finished display will have 15 linked moons on the perimeter of the field to create a giant circle and 10 stars inside that circle.

The field work is the latest step in Earth Work 2002, an outdoor art concept developed through Starr Commonwealth, to promote "Oneness of Humankind."

Thousands of triangles painted by people in and around Calhoun County will be displayed in the corn and rye field in late September as one of five outdoor projects around the world.

The idea was developed in 2000 when representatives from China, Norway, Italy, the United States and Australia met at Albion-based Starr Commonwealth to discuss creating large-scale art in each of those countries.

Starr Commonwealth offers programs for children and families in Michigan and Ohio.

Starr Commonwealth spokeswoman Sue Battel said plotting the points was an important step in getting the project from paper to field.

To do that, geographers from Western Michigan University used global positioning, which uses information transmitted by satellites, to flag the points of the stars and the center of the circles from within 39" inches of where artists wanted them to go.

It took geographers Rolland Fraser and Dave Lemberg about three hours to flag all the points Thursday morning.

Fraser, wearing an $8,000 device that looks like a yellow futuristic backpack with an antenna, said the computer displays a bull's-eye when he is approaching his target.

"I started out with an aerial photograph," Lemberg said. "I put points on the screen created with precise coordinates of latitude and longitude. ... It knows where the computer is at any given time."

Murphy said he was nervous about mowing the lines because, if he made a mistake, there would be no way of immediately correcting it.

But standing on the hood of his tractor, Murphy could see the outline of a star.

Murphy will need to maintain the mowed lines often because the crops will grow back.

The display is slated to open to the public Sept. 29.