One man's imagination has taken him from the beginning of the Space

Race to flights of fancy about life on Mars. The results can be seen in an exhibition of Horst Wolf's paintings at the Bush Barn Art Center February 20th through March 29th.

The exhibit is a rather whimsical one, and related in a merry way to his varied career in the space industry.

"I always have stuff there," Wolf said, "But this time (the art center) asked me just for the Martian artwork."

Wolf was a pioneer in space exploration. He immigrated from Munich, Germany after studying engineering there to the U.S. in 1957. He worked for the Army at Ft. Monmouth, NJ as a research engineer for three years.

"The Army hired many European engineers, such as Werner Von Braun, to help with the space program," Wolf said. "At that time the Army was doing all the missile design," he added, "because there was no NASA yet."

Wolf then accepted a job offer made by Ford Aerospace to work as a research engineer in Newport Beach, CA, and eventually got into systems engineering, finishing his career in Palo Alto.

He described that as coordinating various other specialties for satellite projects. He then became involved in working with system design, such as GPS, communications, and weather satellites.

"There can be up to 25 satellites in a system," Wolf said. "I went from circuit design as a young man in Germany to subsystems design, then to project design," he recalled. "I probably held every job possible in that industry."

That included stints as a research engineer, section head, and department and marketing managers, as well as principal engineer.

"That's someone who sits on a staff and talks wisely", Wolf joked. "Then I retired and became an artist."

He met his second wife, Leslie, in the Silicon Valley area. She was an editor for an aerospace company’s magazine at the time. She is an artist as well, then creating oils and watercolors, but is now into costume design and pottery.

Wolf has been painting as a professional watercolors artist since 1995 in his hometown of Brookings. He had some training by a local watercolors teacher and two formal classes. Always interested in art, Wolf took occasional courses in oils and drawing.

His favorite subjects changed over time. Wolf started with landscapes,then moved on to figure and still life painting.

Now, he prefers creating fantasy characters of those on Mars.

"Those people are behind earthlings in technology," Wolf said. "For instance, (they have) no electricity,and their customs are different." Their appearance is also different, with long necks and their hands and feet resembling claws.

This idea came to him, "from doodling while I was on phone calls."

Friends and customers encouraged him to develop this idea, as well as an Ashland art curator, Karen Wasser.

His works are displayed in a dozen Oregon galleries. Wolf is planning now to just show his art in towns along Oregon’s coast.

The complete Martian artwork is a collection of more than 100 watercolors in four series of paintings centered around what he has imaginatively "discovered" while relaxing on his back porch overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Each series has a theme accompanied by a booklet, thus every painting has a short limerick to accompany the piece.

His first set of the off-world creatures was displayed early last year in his hometown.

"One customer bought practically the whole show afterward," Wolf said.

The next exhibition traveled to Ashland six months later, and pretty much filled up the second floor of the host building.

Each set of paintings has a theme.

"The Salem exhibit is the Martian IRS," Wolf said, "and the IRS on Mars is much tougher than ours. I know because I've visited Mars several times."

There will be over a dozen items in that series.

Not only is Wolf an accomplished painter, but he occasionally prowls the harbor with his digital camera, photographing up-close details of boats and such. And if he isn’t busy enough already with those two activities, there is his involvement with the Brookings Art Walk.

"This monthly event covers all aspects of art," Wolf said, "Including musicians, writers, dancers, culinary masters, photography, anything remotely called art.”

Wolf plays keyboards in a band. "I call it chamber jazz", he added, "It's laid back, not loud, with a latin flavor."

Wolf wants Brookings to be the art center of the southern Oregon coast.

"After five years, we’re doing pretty well."

He will be at the exhibition’s opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. to meet the public.