State Street ‘solar system’ merged science and art, but somebody stole the planets

Nine hand-blown glass marbles, part of a late artist’s colorful display depicting the planets in downtown Bellingham, were stolen last week from their pedestals along North State Street.

The “State of the Solar System” installation, which merges science and art, is a collaboration of the city of Bellingham, the business group Sustainable Connections, Whatcom Middle School students and local artists and designers.

“It was a pretty amazing project, really,” Rose Lathrop of Sustainable Connections said in an interview Monday.

Lathrop said Whatcom Middle School students envisioned the “Solar System” installation and entered it in the 2016 Kapow community art contest — impressing judges and city officials with its blending of science and art and its intent to get viewers to stroll several blocks along State Street to see the entire installation.

“They worked so hard to get it done, to create the planets, to figure out where the planets would be, what they would look like,” Lathrop said.

A Facebook post at The Seeing Bellingham Group depicts the eight planets, including the dwarf planet Pluto.

On Friday, someone used a heavy tool, possibly bolt cutters, to sever the metal pins holding the planets in place on pedestals that included scientific information and other details.

Bellingham Police logged the theft Friday afternoon.

But Deborah Todd, mother of late glass artist Jamus Todd Stone, said the collaborators just want her son’s planetary art returned.

“He wanted this project to get people out and walking,” Todd said in an interview. “ Their street value is not a whole lot,” she said. “ But they’re irreplaceable. That meaning will be lost.”

Todd said it was her son’s first public art project.

Stone died in 2016 at age 28 while traveling with friends in Laos, of a suspected drug overdose, she said.

Todd said the entire pedestal of Mars — concrete base and all — was removed last year and later found in a homeless encampment.

She and others simply want the glass planets returned.

“I don’t want to blame anyone, I don’t want them arrested,” she said. “I just want them back. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that something good will come from it.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 12:36 PM.