About the Project
The stars are so far away that their light has taken millions of years to reach us. Almost all cultures in the world have projected images and stories onto the starry heavens, hence the name, “Constellatory”. We utilize stars to tell stories. We wish upon the stars. We use the stars to navigate our way. Stars remind us of the infinite, something mysterious deep inside our own selves. Many cultures have Gods or Goddesses to represent the stars. Nut, the Egyptian Goddess of the night, gave birth to the stars. Aphrodite was the Goddess of the morning star, the evening star and the mysteries of dreams, death and regeneration. She held up a kind of divine map of the heavenly bodies, the cosmic web of the stars. One definition of a disk is a flat plate coated with a magnetic substance on which data is stored. The disk, as a modern tool, in addition to storing data, connecting individuals, stories and dreams through the information age. A disk is a multifarious symbol of the universe, a circular shape laminating the heavens like a celestial body moving out in the fabric of space and time. The story of the interconnected stars is the inspiration behind this installation.
DiDomenico constructed this 5’ diameter constellation disk, featuring many familiar constellations (Leo, Scorpio, Big Dipper, Lyre, Altar, Orion, Dolphin, Arrow, Southern Fish, Northern Crown, Reticulum, and Big Dog).
“PLANISPHERE: A Community Gathering of Poets and Public Art” was held on March 12, 2017, featuring Rebecca DiDomenico and contributors from the Boulder Writers Warehouse: Ellie Swensson, Sarah Richards Graba, Angelica Barraza, and Eric Raanan Fischman. To learn more, visit Fischman’s article, “When You Wish Upon a Star: A Constellatory.”
About the Artist
Rebecca DiDomenico was born in Greenbrae, CA. She attended school at Claremont College, Tribhuvan University in Nepal and graduated from the University of Colorado with a BA in English Literature. In DiDomenico’s world, there is no separation between art and life, studio and home. Her work is concerned with the collision and interpretation of various forms of nature, mythology, art history and metaphysics. With her innate, relentless curiosity, DiDomenico casts the net of her imagination wide. “I am interested in unexpected relationships, the way a spider mimics a wheel, the commonality between Dr. Seuss and the Dalai Lama, the resemblance between patterns in the constellations of the stars and the minute particles inside the human body.”