An architect by training and an artist at heart, Balashova went on to spend three decades designing the interior of the Soyuz and other Soviet spaceships, making sure the crafts were not just metal carcasses stuffed with equipment, but also living spaces.
Beginning in 1963 over just one weekend, she sketched the interior of the Soyuz craft at home after Sergei Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space programme, asked that the ship be made habitable.
Engineers had fitted out the module with two giant boxes of instruments, but Korolyov had rejected the design and decided to get outside help.
«They didn’t understand what a living space is, they don’t use spatial thinking but think in terms of instruments,» said Balashova, now in her 80s.
«Over the weekend, I thought of how to place the instruments, designing a sort of cupboard on one side and a sort of sofa on the other, where they could nap» — a ubiquitous setup in Soviet households.
After Korolyov approved her sketch, which included the landscape drawing on the wall, she also had to provide the actual watercolour painting that would go up into space.
Since Korolyov had approved the design with a landscape drawing, the engineers «always asked for one» on subsequent modules. «Nine of (the paintings) went to space,» laughed Balashova.
Despite that, Balashova says she was not allowed to put her name under her work, complaining that her bosses took the credit.
Balashova still lives in her tiny apartment in Korolyov, a town outside Moscow that is home to Russia’s space mission control and named after the space travel visionary.
Sitting in her living room, Balashova spreads out her watercolour space designs on the table, their airy pastels in odd contrast with the militaristic nature of the programme during the space race era.
«At first I wanted to create a space for microgravity that would not have a floor or ceiling,» she said.
But the futuristic vision was discarded for practical reasons.
«Humans train on Earth and they are used to the concepts of top and bottom. «
Cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk, who travelled to space as part of the Soyuz and Salyut programmes, agreed that it was important for colours and other elements of the Soyuz interior to create a «cosy» atmosphere.
In the orbit module «certain elements were painted certain colours and special fabric was used», he said.
«Delicate colours are better» and no matter the microgravity, the human eye «still believes there is a floor and ceiling», like on Earth, he said.
Colours were especially important in Balashova’s work on the 1975 US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz project, which would be seen by millions around the world and needed to fit in additional photo and video equipment.
«My bosses wanted a red sofa but red showed up as black on film,» she said.
She struggled through four versions of the craft before finding a solution «when suddenly things were human-scale and there was harmony», she said.
The resulting orbital module had a green sofa and velcro belts with which cosmonauts attached themselves, and even a folding table where they ate and signed the documents marking the symbolic joint flight.
When visiting the module, American astronaut Vance Brand praised its «very convenient setup».
Balashova still sits in a chair upholstered with the same green fabric she used to cover the Soyuz sofa.
That too was a product of experimentation. Initial attempts to use velcro on the furniture led to cosmonauts «losing their jersey pants» on it, she giggled.
Her flat is filled with books and watercolour portraits of family, with almost no sign that she influenced the look of generations of Soviet spaceships.
She says her engineering bosses didn’t value her work, looking down on her as an artist and a woman — one of the few working in the Soviet space industry and the only female in a creative position in Korolyov’s team.
«I was alone working with only men, and they treated me like a servant. «
After she retired, her drawings spent over a decade gathering dust under her bed.
Balashova now lives on a pension of 18,000 rubles ($297, 287 euros) a month.
«I never wanted to go to space,» she admitted. But as an architect, she found the work interesting, she said, and found her inspiration in constantly striving for harmony in her designs.
«When I got it, I felt goosebumps down my back,» she said.

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© Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2017/01/08/The-hidden-artist-of-the-Soviet-space-programme
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They were born nearly 50 years and an ocean apart.
A new show juxtaposes works by the Post-Impressionist and the modernist painter he inspired
And while French painter Henri Matisse is a household name in this country, many Americans have never heard of Richard Diebenkorn.
“And I’m hoping that will change,” said curator Katy Rothkopf, who hopes viewers see the work of Matisse, the French Post-Impressionist master, and Diebenkorn, the influential but less-known American modernist, side-by-side for the first time.
Now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the exhibit “Matisse/Diebenkorn” will travel to San Francisco in the spring.
There are 92 works in the exhibition — 56 by Diebenkorn, and 36 by Matisse.
Curator Katy Rothkopf with correspondent Rita Braver, at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
When asked what are the greatest similarities between the two artists, Rothkopf replied, “They both loved color. And I think they both just had a magic touch with the paintbrush.”
The two never met, but the similarity was more than mere coincidence. Richard Diebenkorn studied Matisse almost obsessively.
“He was someone who was a real student,” Rothkopf said, “Certainly there were other artists that influenced him throughout his life, but no one more than Matisse.”
One reason that Richard Diebenkorn is less well-known than other important artists of the mid-20th century is that he lived and worked in America’s West — far from New York, then the epicenter of modern art in America.
A master of contemporary American art, Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) was noted for landscape paintings, thoughtful figure studies, and geometric…
Born in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Diebenkorn began drawing as a toddler, eventually going on to study art at Stanford.
His early work was in the abstract expressionist mode. “He loved abstraction,” Roithkopf said. “And that was certainly the style of the time.”
He first saw a Matisse in 1943, and was hooked — over the years, traveling as far as Paris and St. Petersburg to view the older artist’s work. But Diebenkorn never sought to imitate Matisse.
“He felt very much that it was important to look to the past,” Rothkopf said. “And why would you not look at something that someone else had done? It didn’t mean that you were copying them, it just meant that they were inspiring you.”
Inspired by Matisse, Diebenkorn’s style constantly evolved. Both men produced abstract and figurative works — some with flattened, muted colors; others with vibrant, recognizable images.
Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant is the daughter of the late painter. She described her mother as the artist’s muse, though — as seen in the artist’s 1961 “Sleeping Woman” — a “little tired of posing, perhaps!” she laughed.
Braver asked, “Did you at any time while you were growing up realize that he was, indeed, influenced by Henri Matisse?”
“Oh yes,” she replied. “He had a wonderful collection of art books. And he had more Matisse books than anything else. People would give them to him all the time.”
And on the day she visited the Baltimore Museum of Art, Grant got to meet Sophie Matisse, Henri’s great-granddaughter, for the very first time.
“They look at the world in a sort of similar way. I’m looking around while I’m saying this, to see the sensibilities,” Grant said.
“Yeah, me too!” Matisse added.
“The work is not the same, but it’s very definitely related.”
“But they exchange kind of a mystical language between the two of them that I think comes out in this show, that’s just breathtaking,” Matisse said.
The parallels are unmistakable, including their contrasts of light and color.
The exhibition pairs Diebenkorn’s “Interior with Doorway” (1962) with Matisse’s “Interior With a Violin” (1918).
Richard Diebenkorn died in 1993 at the age of 70, nearly forty years after Matisse’s death. Diebenkorn lived to witness his own success, but since he never met the man who influenced him along the way, their relationship would be left to the canvas — and our imaginations.
Braver asked Grant and Matisse, “Could you imagine what a conversation between these two artists would have been?”
“I’m sure that my father would have loved to have met Matisse,” Grant replied.
“And how do you know they’re not, like, up there, looking down?” Matisse laughed.

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This week Steve reviews a modern fairy tale that stars Liam Neeson and Felicity Jones along with Lewis MacDougall. See the video above for his take on, «A Monster Calls. «

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