Little Falls, NY -April 1, 2023
On April 1st, Daneli Partners will be sponsored a screening of The Artist & the Astronaut
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By Katie Drake
On this journey through life, we are fortunate to meet folks along the way who are unique and special in some way. The connections we feel and form with certain people can have a profound effect.
That’s precisely what happened to Bill Muench. Bill is an energetic modern Renaissance man living with his family in Manchester, Vermont. He has spent the last 32 years at Burr & Burton Academy teaching high school students English, Psychology, and, most recently Cinematography, while coaching basketball. Sixteen years ago, he connected with two people who deeply impacted him.
Bill was inspired to do something important because of that connection, and he’s coming to Little Falls in a few weeks to share that with our community.
Pat and Jerry Carr met Bill Muench and his wife Barb in Manchester and quickly became friends. The Muench’s became fond of Jerry and Pat and found each of them and their story fascinating.
Jerry Carr served as a marine fighter pilot, flying intelligence missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was one of 19 people chosen from over 6,000 applications to work for NASA on the second group of astronauts. He was a spacecraft communicator (Cap Com) and was named Commander of the longest space flight to date in Skylab 4. On Christmas Day in 1973, he got his turn and made one of history’s first and longest spacewalks.
Pat Musick is a civil rights activist, having spent much time at Cornell University in the 1960s. When Vietnam and Civil Rights protests began, she turned to art to understand it all and became an accomplished environmental artist. Her large and small, indoor and outdoor sculptures and works on paper are featured in over 100 public and private collections, including more than 50 museums and public spaces in the US. She has an MA and Ph.D. from Cornell University and has authored four books.
Apple founder Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Later in life, Musick taught art and psychology at the University of Houston when she met Jerry at a small church in Webster, Texas. They fell in love and married, and the dots began to connect.
In 2016, the Muench’s were invited to Bentonville, Arkansas, to celebrate Pat’s 90th Birthday and visit her commissioned installation of “A Place Where They Cried.”
This important outdoor work is a 6’x65’x8’ stone sculpture that sits along a walking trail on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art grounds. It represents the Native Indian people who traveled through Arkansas as part of the Trail of Tears, a forced migration in the early 1800s, where 4,000 died.
Traveling to Arkansas, experiencing the sculpture, and celebrating his friend Pat, moved Bill Muench. He said, “Someone should make a documentary about Pat and Jerry.” Bill’s wife, Barb, told Bill it should be him.
He decided that it would be him. Muench embarked on a 6-year journey to learn about Pat and Jerry’s lives. He wanted the world to know about these two uniquely amazing people and their unlikely love story as they participated in some of the most historic moments in human history.
Muench gathered six hours of interview footage with Jerry about his stories and experiences, six hours of footage of Pat on hers, and six hours of interviews of the couple about their life together.
Bill says, “I treated it like a phone call, Pat here, and Jerry in space leading their separate lives: life on the ground, and life up there. As each story was told, I hunted down different people to interview to create alternate viewpoints. I’d jump in my car and make it happen. It was all about connecting the dots.”
That led Bill to travel nationwide to interview people from NASA, Cornell, and even the Nixon administration, to name a few. His film is filled with never before seen footage of the early space pioneers, includes important events in American history, and how Pat and Jerry combined talents to render some of the most enduring art installations in America.
Muench says the title was obvious to him and aptly titled his film, ‘The Artist and The Astronaut.’ He then enlisted the help of a talented musician and Central New York legend in his own right, Todd Hobin.
Back in 1979, Bill was a fan of Hobin and would often go out to watch him play. Hobin even performed at Bill’s prom in 1980. Thirty years later, Bill reached out to him to ask if he could include one of Todd’s songs in the film. Hobin said yes, and after watching it, asked Bill if he could take a crack at scoring the film. A friendship began. The Artist and the Astronaut score is all original music by Todd Hobin.
The Artist and the Astronaut is quickly gaining attention in film circles. It was the Official Selection of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival in 2022 and won the esteemed Spirit of Independents Award. In 2023 it was named an official selection of the Madrid Indie Film Festival and an official selection of the Omaha Film Festival.
Next month, the local company Daneli Partners is hosting a public premier of The Artist and the Astronaut here in Little Falls at Valley Cinemas on Saturday, April 1st, at 7:30 pm, which will benefit the Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts. Tickets for the film are limited and will include a cocktail hour to meet Bill Muench and Todd Hobin and a Q & A to follow the premier.
You can purchase tickets online, at the Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts, and at Valley Cinemas.
Katie Drake moved to Little Falls in 2003 and fell in love with this city. She says she isn’t a writer but a storyteller.
The opportunity to highlight the great people of Little Falls and share her perspectives and some humor from time to time piqued her interest, and here we are.
Just ask her, and she’ll tell you that after growing up in Millers Mills, a population of 25+ (according to the sign), Little Falls was just the right size. Katie is the oldest of two brothers and five sisters.
In 2020 Katie and her best friend Chris began their greatest adventure with the birth of their sweet and sassy son Nolan who makes them laugh every day.
Katie loves to snowmobile, golf, hike, and travel in her free time.
If you have feedback on one of her articles or an idea for a story, please feel free to reach out to Katie at KatherineDrakeLF@gmail.com. She would love to hear from you.
If this article leaves you wanting more, or you are just bored, feel free to check out other articles she has contributed by visiting Katie Drake Archives – My Little Falls.