Pale Fire

The moon's an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun

-Timon of Athens, William Shakespeare

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the window pane;

I was the smudge of ashen fluff — and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

-Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov

Using photographs of the night sky as raw materials, I attempt to find order in the movement of celestial bodies just as philosophers and scientists have for thousands of years, a quest for order and meaning that relates to music, numerology, our relationship to the Universe, modern cosmology, and beyond.

Inspired by Nabokov’s masterful poem within a novel, in Pale Fire I build each pieces by combining my photographs of the stars and moon. Canto One of my Pale Fire is directly inspired by the first four lines of the poem quoted above.