Beaded Artwork: "Night Sky"

Work of art by Margaret Nazon, "Night Sky" a.k.a. "Milky Way, Starry Night # 2". Commissioned by the museum in 2021 for exhibit "Lights Out: Recovering the Night Sky", opening at National Museum of Natural History in 2023. Black cotton cloth, beaded with celestial design. Long curved lines, stars, planets, galaxies, and a comet. Multicolored beads, especially shades of blue, silver, and black. Backed with off-white cotton canvas, with the beading threads visible on the back. Double line of stitching near the edges, and edges are stitched with a zig-zag stitch.

Margaret Nazon described the items depicted on this artwork as: "3 constellations: Ursa Major; Cassiopeia and Orion (belt, bow and arrow), Ursa Minor and Polaris, 4 Black Holes (not necessarily colored black), The Aurora, Beetle Juice [Betelgeuse], Gas & clouds, Comet, Numerous colourful galaxies, 1 Caribou bone used as centre of a galaxy, and Millions of Stars, streams and swirls of cloud and gas."

17 Jun 2025

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