2007 · 65 × 65 cm (approx. 26 × 26 in) · Born in the Sky · by Stephen Meakin
In 1974, scientists pointed the Arecibo radio telescope at Messier 13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules — 300,000 stars, 25,000 light-years away — and broadcast the most ambitious message humanity has ever sent into space. It contained our DNA, our form, our solar system, our numbers. The message is still travelling. It will arrive in approximately 24,975 years.
Stephen named this painting after that cluster and built it on thirteen.
There are thirteen full moons in a solar year. The Gregorian calendar erased one.
Mutable: the astrological word for signs of transition, for things that change form rather than hold it. Thirteen is the number of the cycle that refuses to stay fixed. It waxes and wanes. It cannot be suppressed by a calendar.
This 13-pointed star (Tridecagon) was painted to celebrate the divine feminine through soft, mutable pastel colours. Reflecting the light of the ever-changing moon. The numerology of 13 is seldom acknowledged in temple architecture. — Stephen Meakin