The expression, “once in a blue moon,” refers to occurrences that are uncommon but not truly rare. Every two-and-a-half to three years, two full moons appear in a single month. The second is called a Blue Moon. The next blue moon will occur on August 22, 2021.
The moon does not actually appear blue so where does the name come from? A 1999 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine revealed a confusing origin of the term. The modern custom of naming the second full moon of the month “blue” came from an article published in the 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine titled “Once in a Blue Moon” where the author, James Hugh Pruett, interpreted what he read in the Maine Farmers’ Almanac and declared the second full moon in a calendar month as a “Blue Moon.”
In celebration of the upcoming blue moon, we present cyanotypes by Jesseca Ferguson who has been working with the moon as a recurring motif for many years.
Lunar landscape (negative), 2019, cyanotype on Stonehenge paper
Lunar landscape (positive), 2019, cyanotype on Stonehenge paper
I have a vivid childhood memory of the full moon. I was about seven or eight-years-old, and I was with a favorite aunt, walking along a beach in the moonlight. The moon shone upon us so brightly that we cast shadows. I saw the moon’s gleaming path across the water, from the horizon to the sand, always just a few steps ahead of me. I tried and tried to catch up to this shimmering reflection. If I could just set foot on it, I was sure that I could march across the waves and right out to the moon.
In my life as an artist, I have been working with moon on and off for years. My inspirations are both visual and literary. A small Polish lunar atlas, discovered by chance many years ago in an antiquarian bookshop in Kraków, Poland, has been a constant companion and source of imagery. This tiny book is one of many fragments, odds and ends, images that point me again and again toward the moon. Did I find this book or did it find me?
Moonscape - moon (constructed), 2014, cyanotype and gum bichromate, found book board
The Moon (constructed), 2010, pinhole Ware cyanotype, found paper, found gilded wood, found book boards
The Farsi moon images came about through a collaboration with Iranian author Hossein Mortazeian Abkenar. I was especially struck by chapter six of his oneiric novel, A Scorpion on the Steps of the Andimeshk Train Station (2006). In this chapter, the moon—now single, now doubled—is a presence, a character, a witness. I layered 19th century scientific images of the moon (daguerreotypes and collodion on glass taken photographed through telescopes) with Abkenar’s handwritten Farsi. The moons were printed in cyanotype, while the text was printed in gum bichromate pigmented with rose petals, wood ash, and clay. The combination produces a surface quality evocative of what Jule Verne called “the ashy light of the moon.”
The Scorpion, chapter 6, page 2 (Draper moon), 2014, gum bichromate (pigmented with rose petals) and cyanotype
The Scorpion, chapter 6, page 1(Draper moon), 2014, gum bichromate (pigmented with wood ashes, watercolor), and cyanotype
The Scorpion, chapter 6, page 1 (Whipple Moon), 2014, gum bichromate (pigmented with clay, rose petals, wood ashes) and cyanotype
For the bioluminescent moon cyanotypes, I worked with Dr. Jean Huang, environmental microbiologist. I created negatives in the darkroom using the light generated by bioluminescent bacteria. This process allowed me to discover altogether new moon imagery.
Chin of Gold, Bioluminescent Moon (Whipple and Dickinson), 2019, cyanotype on paper
Remotest Star, Bioluminescent Moon (Whipple and Dickinson) 2019, cyanotype on paper
View the next Blue Moon on August 22, 2021.