The Zorya
Debora Ewing
The Science
Each piece I create has a “soundtrack”, a song I play on repeat until the piece is finished. The Zorya's soundtrack is a television mini-series, ‘The Code’ by Marcus du Sautoy. He explains nature’s conservancy behind the fibonacci-esque spiral of sunflower centres. My paint-strokes aren’t rigid but the spiral is there. He also examines the mechanics of murmuration; each starling pays attention to 7 of its fellows to make larger patterns, so I painted the cloud of birds in groups of 7. It’s a multimedia piece; some birds and sky-fish are cut out of paper and pasted on. The title honours Neil Gaiman's version of Slavic mythology: Zorya Utrennyaya the morning star and Zorya Vechernyaya the evening star, who open and close palace gates for the sun god Dažbog. Gaiman created a third: Zorya Polunochnaya, the midnight star. I connect my sunflowers to myth because they represent phases of human life-span, women as goddesses whether young, mature, or aged.
The Zorya is currently on display at 2424 Studios in Philadelphia until May 31, 2021. Private tours are available and may be scheduled through jerksproductions.Setmore.com.
The Artist
Debora Ewing is a writer, artist, and blog editor for Igneus Press. Her work is published in a wide range of venues, from "Plainsongs" by Hastings College Press to online publications globally: Dodging the Rain, Beyond Words, Shot Glass Journal, and Jerry Jazz Musician, among others. Deb publishes her own blog, #uncoffeed…. Connect with Deb on Twitter or Instagram.
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license