Artisan makes Martian globes
On May 4, the Blast-Off Dinner for the Mars New Year event will feature handmade globes of the planet Mars by a West Mifflin resident.
Mars Mayor Gregg Hartung said the globes will be given out as awards during the culmination of the ceremony.
For Daniel Andre creating the globes has been a labor of love.
“I am honored that the community would select me to do the awards,” he said.
Two sizes are being made for the event — 6- and 8-inch globes — and they also will be available for sale at a display booth during the event.
Andre, who owns Knights of the Classroom, which specializes in hands-on assemblies and sells historically accurate medieval chain mail jewelry and armor, said he began globe making as a hobby before moving on to selling them and was honored to have his products chosen as the awards for the event.
Andre said the globes are made of pressure laminated adhesive vinyl on a Styrofoam core, which allows him to create an affordable alternative to the standard metal or glass globes.
The globes are made by “fitting a square map on a circle,” he said. First, the map must be converted to a sphere, separated into “gores,” or small sections of the whole and then placed onto the Styrofoam core.
Andre said this historically accurate way of making globes is time-consuming, but worth it, with some taking five to seven hours. He said he made his first globe in 1993 after finding all other alternatives too expensive.
He said he became fascinated by space when he was 5 years old and watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. This same fascination led him to a career in teaching history after graduating from California State University in elementary and early childhood education. He said as a certified teacher, he tries to make lessons interactive and hands-on, including talking with children about space, using many of the globes he makes as models of the solar system.
“When you can excite your students, make learning fun, exciting and relevant, you can really open so many avenues and doors,” he said.
Andre began making chain mail in 1983.
