The Alchemy of Home
Written by Beth Ables & Photography by Paige French
Above the mantle in artist Michelle Armas’ Decatur, GA home floats a nebula. Stretched, striking and soaring, the photograph of the blooming blue starscape that is the Carina nebula doesn’t loom as much as it swirls and tugs at the eye and the imagination. It’s a cloud, you first think, no—it’s an explosion, a tiny sun…and snapping back to reality, you realize your glance has drifted into a stare or even a reverie.
A nebula, actually, is a cloud—a color-heavy, flaming haze drawing dust and debris inward to spark and create. Its force continues to pull and ignite and pull and ignite until it becomes a star, the excess launching planets into the cosmos. All of which is a gorgeous, almost unnamable metamorphosis, each stage more beautiful, rich, and vibrant.
Isn’t that home, in a way? That undeniable, unnamable force at the core—drawing inward in a tangle of color and life and motion only to release back into the dark universe the result of creation (a handful of spangling stars): a home invites, a home transforms and releases...
