Journey Home by Barbara Hayden

I do not like beads. However, beads became the vehicle whereby my needleace butterfly could journey home. The butterfly has long been a symbol of resurrection, and I believe home is somewhere out there, beyond the stars, beyond our understanding of space and time.

Black on black was interesting and led to some challenging design issues. Originally I intended to use the same colored beads in the constellations as represented by the magnitude of the star, however that ended up just looking “icky”. So the subtle multi-colored beads were used. While the constellations are “real” purists will quickly realize that their relative positions have been changed to enhance the design. (The universe is VERY empty!) I still don’t like beads, but I think I will be much more open to using them in the future. I hope you enjoy my attempt!