The Ascension of the Sea Stars

by Merana Cadorette

Title

The Ascension of the Sea Stars

Artist

Merana Cadorette

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Wrapped Canvas

Description

The Ascension of the Sea Stars

The Sea star scuttles along the bottoms of seas and oceans all around the world. But what if a few of them yearn for more? Perhaps even to ascend to the stars they resemble?

Maybe, ever so often, with the arising of the proper full moon, when the weather and tides are ‘just so’; they climb to the beaches. There, they line up where the sea, sand, and sky meet. As the frothy brine hits the shore, they slip into the bubbles, then the wind whips them aloft…sea creatures, no more. They float up into the heavens to become celestial stars.
***
While painting this moonlit sea, my mind wanders (as it does!) into what could be happening in this scene. I thought of the spray of the foam as the waves crashed into the sand. What if it released bubbles? My brush followed my imagination.
I liked it, but it was still too sterile. It needed life. Nighttime=stars, ocean=sea stars...and what if they might float in the bubbles, like little maritime astronauts?
***
The Sea star is a curious looking echinoderm (NOT a fish!). They belong to the class Asteroidea, "true stars”. They trundle along the ocean floor on tube feet. Because they are not classified as fish, marine scientists wish they could correct the public’s use of ‘starfish’ to ‘sea star’.
Sea stars occur in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. All resemble stars, most commonly with five arms, (although some can grow up to 40).
Sea stars have an eye spot at the end of each arm. This means that a five-armed sea star has five eyes, while the 40-armed ‘sun star’ has 40 eyes. Each sea star eye looks like a red spot and is rather basic. It can sense light and dark but very little detail, just enough for the murky environments the critters dwell in.
The arms are arrayed around a central disk. They can regenerate lost limbs and swallow large prey inverting their unusual stomachs. Instead of blood, sea stars have a circulatory system made up primarily of seawater.
There are some 2,000 species of sea star living in all the world’s oceans, from tropical habitats to the frigid seabed. There are no freshwater sea stars, and only a few types live in brackish water.

This earned 2021 AMERICAN ART AWARDS
Category 14. FANTASY LANDSCAPE
4th Place-Tie MERANA CADORETTE

Uploaded

March 18th, 2021

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