Pale Blue Dot

For the last several years I’ve been paying close attention to the recurring presence of the setting sun around the time of the Summer Solstice when it’s far enough north in the western sky to make an appearance on my eastern walls at the end of the day. The larger image, Sun on Woods, is my photograph of the sun setting on the photograph of the woods. To further complicate the layered possibilities of the work, I added a photographic light switch, should some clouds block out the setting sun. I knew there must be birds in there somewhere, invisible though they were, so I brought along two for the occasion of the exhibition. I placed them in a cropped section of the woods, and seeing that one was apparently talking to the other, I extended the joy of the moment as I recalled some thoughts of Carl Sagan, the planetary scientist, when he saw the earth in a photograph taken from outer space and called what he saw “ a pale blue dot” – what I’ve named this group of works – and shared his thoughts with the talking titmouse, as if the birds, too, might be marveling with elation and humility, as Sagan had, at the wonder of it all.

Pale Blue Dot was created in response to the reopening of the Bridgette Mayer Gallery in 2021, celebrated with a group exhibition, “Karmic Joy”.