Marissa Antosh is a professional librarian with a background in art, living and working in Southeastern Massachusetts. She was inspired by Kamala Harris’ speech on November 6, 2024 where she referenced that many people felt that we were entering a dark time but recalled that only when it is dark can you see the stars, and if we were entering such a time, “…let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”

This image of every person as a pinprick of light in the darkness, and also the image of the American flag with fifty white stars against a field of blue, gave her the idea to stitch a brilliant number of stars over the course of this current administration. Ideally, the stars will be stitched as a light color against a dark background, but affixing stars to fabric in other ways is possible too! Inspired by collaborative projects like Diana Weymar’s Tiny Pricks Project and the Fuller Craft Museum’s past exhibit Threads of Resistance, she is looking for collaborators for Brilliant Billion of Stars. Whether you want to help stitch toward the total goal, want to get the word out to others, or just want to follow along, you can find this project at brilliantbillionofstars or on Instagram @brilliantbillionofstars.

The Brilliant Billion of Stars project was very much inspired by the Tiny Pricks Project by Diana Weymar and the 25 Million Stitches Project by Jennifer Kim Sohn.