Alcyone
(17.5”L x 25”H x 17.5”W)
The StarSentient™ sculpture Alcyone is named after the brightest star in the Pleiades (Messier 45), an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus. It is a blue-white, B-type giant and shines at an apparent magnitude of about 2.9 at a rough distance of 440 light-years from Earth. Physically, Alcyone is dramatically larger and brighter than our Sun, with a radius approximately 10 times that of the Sun and a luminosity on the order of 2,000–2,500 times greater. It is also surrounded by a gaseous circumstellar disk that has emission features (highly active radiated elements), which also amplifies its perceived brightness. The star’s name comes from Greek mythology: Alcyone was one of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of the Titan, Atlas, and Pleione, and her name is associated with calm seas and cyclical time—the origin of the term “halcyon days.” Historically and culturally, Alcyone has been regarded as the dominant star of the Pleiades, a cluster long used by ancient civilizations for navigation, seasonal calendars, and mythic symbolism tied to renewal, order, cosmic rhythms, and ancient spiritual origin stories.
This sculpture is my first to incorporate a clear crystal disk as its main element. This piece of the composition is massive, but it gathers so many nuances of light that it’s a true allegory to the huge plume of the light-spreading circumstellar disk of the star itself.
