About Us
Spacefest is a unique gathering of astronauts, space scientists and space artists with a something special for every space enthusiast and collector both young and old. It was conceived and organized by Kim Poor and Novaspace to fill a void in the space community.
Photo taken during private signing with Dave Scott.
From left to right: Randy Clamons, Kim Poor (sitting), Alina Amador, Sally Poor, Lisa White, Dave Scott, Rob Gallagher.
Novaspace began in 1978, as the mail-order source for a few prints by Kim Poor. Moving out of the house in 1989 to a small rented shop, we began to add other artists, most of whom attended space art workshops held by the IAAA (International Assoc. of Astronomical artists), a loose affiliation of like-minded men and women, who had made Kim their first President. Workshops were held in Hawaii, Death Valley, N.Arizona-Utah, Moscow, Houston (NASA-JSC) and Iceland.
We moved out of our shop in 1991, into a shop-gallery not far away, expanding into a gallery near NASA in Houston not long after. The Houston operation was very expensive and hard to administer from Tucson, our home base. It never made a cent. We closed it down in 1993.
Around summer of 1994, we heard buzzings about the internet, specifically the new World Wide Web. We set up our own website in early 1995, when there were only about 40,000 sites up. It was a perfect fit, and cheap, (then.) We gained a world wide audience. It was profitable from the start.
In 1997 we moved into a larger space in the same complex that had become vacant. We had a large, multi-room, well-lit gallery, a larger area for our workshop, and the internet traffic increased every year. We had many openings, shows, book signings...
In the early 1990s, we had begun selling astronaut-autographed items, because of our Houston exposure, and it very quickly began outselling the art. Many of our customers, gained through years of art shows in malls, festivals and street fairs throughout the West and across the USA, began to add astronaut items to their space art collections. So we had a ready-made, large and valuable mailing list, and were able to attract Apollo astronauts to Tucson for book signings, etc. Our website, Novaspace.com, was becoming bloated, and confusing, so we recently spun off AstronautCentral.com as our dedicated astronaut site, while NovaspaceArt.com remains pure space art.
In 2002, we began our 24/7 astro-auction.com, like ebay, but cheaper (free to sellers and buyers.) We featured a section with space art, as well as astronaut "garage sales" & autographs. Astro-Auction no longer accepts new listings but it continues to provide a shortcut to eBay space-related items.
In 2006, we moved again into a smaller shop with no gallery (we rarely had anyone walk in.)
In 2007, we combined our passions into a unique event, SPACEFEST, which assembled a large (20+) astronaut autograph show, a space art show, exhibitors, and world-class speakers. Everything to satisfy the space nut.
For more Info on the 2009 and 2007 Spacefests follow these links:
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