Clouds: Ode to Constable (2009-2017)

The British painter, John Constable, made a practice of what he called "skying."  He would do small painted sketches of clouds in preparation for his large landscape paintings.  He had a remarkable understanding of the shape and structure of clouds, and he would note the atmospheric conditions and time of day on the back of his sketches.  In an age of growing awareness of the science of meterology, Constable announced to a friend in 1823, "I am a man of clouds."

I am a woman of clouds. In my series of cloud photographs, I give form to the fleeting clouds of early dawn and sunset, in locations as varied as Vermont and South Carolina and Iceland and New Mexico. The series of black and white “Sumi Clouds,” was made at Penland School of Craft, in North Carolina. I call them “sumi” because they remind me a bit of Japanese sumi-e, black ink paintings.