Constellations: Poems of the Night Watch
A beautiful fusion of poetry and art, created over 6 years and 30,000 ocean miles, this mother-daughter collaboration is the only book of its kind.
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The Delivery:
To stave off sleepiness during night watches aboard her sailboat, my mother Arliss Ryan began to compose poetry inspired by the brilliant universe overhead. During the course of her circumnavigation, her late-night scribblings evolved into the concept of a fully illustrated poetry collection. When she pitched the idea to me during a vacation to New Zealand, of course I said yes immediately.
Our long-distance collaboration spanned six years, nineteen time zones, and thousands of hours of work. As Mom composed each poem, she emailed it to me along with ideas, doodles, and notes on the history and mythology. I sent back rough composition and character sketches, eventually adopting an entirely digital process. Between Adobe Fresco on my iPad Pro and Photoshop and InDesign in my studio, I built a system of custom brushes, color palettes, and dozens of layers of watercolor.
As I refined the art to bring the poems to life, Mom refined the poems to harmonize with the art. I followed my parents’ GPS position tracker on the internet, and my mother’s celestial vista sparkled in my mind’s eye. Though we relied on modern technology to bridge the distance between us, like generations of people across the ancient world, what truly connected us was the stars.