Celestial Observations in Indigo is a drawing project that develops from long-term observation of the sky. The series reflects my interest in mono no aware, a Japanese philosophical and aesthetic concept that recognizes the fundamental transience of all things. These works engage with evanescent events such as eclipses, meteor radiants, stars, moonlight, and the moon as seen through fog or daylight. They are not depictions of fixed subjects, but studies of perception over time. Each drawing is executed in natural indigo dye on washi paper, where color functions as a material measure of time.

The project arises from two bodies of work I began during the Covid-19 pandemic. The first was Pandemic Moon Almanac, begun on the first day of lockdown in New York, a sequence of nightly observations made over 904 consecutive days that formed a record of the pandemic period through celestial observation. During that time I produced daily page-sized drawings of each night’s specific moon phase in graphite and micronized silver on indigo-dyed paper. The second was A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words, a bilingual archive devoted to the language of rain, which was ultimately published by the MIT Press as Water of the Sky: A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words. Both projects share a common method, to translate subtle atmospheric change into visual and linguistic form.

Celestial Observations in Indigo expands this method into larger compositions. The works register celestial and meteorological conditions as they occur, including eclipses, lunar phases, storms, and other transient events in the sky. Indigo functions as both medium and chronometer. Indigo is a natural dye in which time becomes visible as color. The longer the indigo touches the paper, the darker the tone becomes, so the depth of blue directly encodes duration. Lighter indigo corresponds to shorter intervals and darker shades to longer spans of time.