Stellar Nomenclature

hard ground etching, aquatint | 15″ x 18″ | each in an edition of 10 | 2015

Stellar Nomenclature

These prints are inspired by Johann Bayer’s 1603 Uranometria, the star atlas that is the source of the nomenclature we still use to name stars today (Alpha Centauri, Lambda Scorpii, etc.). This diptych takes the idea of stellar nomenclature and focuses attention on some of those names themselves. From a list of star names associated with one of the pages of Uranometria, I have distilled out the vowels and consonants. Each sound is represented as a star on either the IPA vowel chart (as seen from below) or the IPA consonant chart (as seen from above). Based on the distribution of the resulting “stars,” I have drawn an image of two constellations, as they might have been imagined by the ancients.

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