Artist in Residency

During the Cocoa Beach classes, Don spent his mornings teaching the kids. In the afternoons he painted a large scale painting live at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Visitors were able to watch the real-time creation of an aerospace painting, as well as Ask-the-Artist questions. One of the highlights of this portion of the project was a surprise visit by Apollo 11, Gemini 12 Astronaut Buzz Aldren.

The artist in residency program is a key element of Artists4Space.

1. It provides strong visual awareness for the program including posts to social media. People from all over the world were able to follow the progress of the painting and the program via Facebook and Instagram with the hash tag #artits4space.
2. It lends greater credibility to the program via a continual presence at the Space Center.
3. The paintings produced during the artist in residency program are available as premiums for major donors.

Gillespie's involvement in aerospace art dates back to the 1970s. As Senior Designer for Honeywell Space Systems Group in Clearwater Florida, Gillespie worked with engineers to create hundreds of concept paintings for NASA and DOD programs. His work has been displayed across the USA and internationally.