Fly Me to the Moon

Overhead rises an incandescent circle,

relentlessly pursuing me wherever I go.

Altering its form each night,

it repeats a pattern of changes.

Cycles upon cycles endlessly,

constant rhythms giving form to darkness.

Something stirs deep within my soul,

beckoning me to find an unknown shore.

Our ancestors used observations of nature to guide their early migrations. Studying the constellations in the sky, they relied upon the sun, moon, and stars as their GPS system. I'm working on three pieces that will form a mobile: Sun, Moon, and Stars. The mobile will go with the Southwest Asia section of Eve's Imprint.

Phases of the moon - Google Images

I've begun with the moon, conflating its many phases into one image.

I want to combine the moon with an image of a Hindo Persian astrolabe, an instrument of navigation invented by the Greeks but refined and produced by astrologers in Southwest Asia.

Hindo Persian Astrolabe - Google Images

So the moon and astrolabe can be back to back, I cut the astrolabe's shape out of foam core.

Foamcore cut to shape of Hindo Persian Astrolabe
and edged with bookbinding tape.

I worked with several iridescent paints to get luminosity and
subtle indication of the moon's phases.

No matter how many times I do image transfers and how carefully I record my process, every time seems to be a crap shoot. This time I had two learnings when I attempted to transfer an image of the Hindo Persian astrolabe to watercolor paper. Firstly, the paper has to be wet, and second, smaller images transfer more easily than a large one. After my first failure, I cut my astrolabe image into three parts and tried again. 

Two superimposed transfers of the Hindo Persian astrolabe. Before
transferring, I had painted a light coat of blue on the watercolor paper. 

I liked the aged look of the result, but I really want the viewer to grasp that the astrolabe has interlocking parts. Short of actually making one, I traced and cut out some of the gears. To show the connection of the mobile to my pieces in Southwest Asia, I collaged copies of the cave art I used for Pakistan/Afghanistan onto the cutout of gears. I left the center knob loose so it casts a faint shadow.

I like the tie dye look created by the cave art copies. 

As I prepared to put the three pieces together, I had to cut down my moon shape to fit on the foam core and not extend too much beyond the astrolabe.

Moon cut to match foamcore shape of astrolabe.

Ready to put all three pieces together!