Pale Blue Dot

Dolores Miller

29.5H x 51W x 0.5D inches

2020

USA

ARTIST STATEMENT

2020 was the 30th anniversary of Voyager I’s seminal image of Earth taken from the edge of the Solar System. Carl Sagan wrote: “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” Pale Blue Dot is my textile expression of this thought: we have the technological power to see our cosmic insignificance.

MATERIALS

Commercial cotton fabrics, crinoline, polyester scarf, metallic foil, polyester threads

TECHNIQUES

Raw-edge appliqué, machine stitching, foiling