The Clouds series began in 2013 as a continuation of my earlier Hamon paintings, first created in 2003 after an apprenticeship with a master metalsmith in Japan. Named for the tempering patterns that appear along the edge of a Japanese sword, the Hamon works initiated my sustained attention to cloud forms and their continual transformation. The association between the transience of clouds and the permanence of steel remains part of the history of the series.

The Clouds paintings begin with photographs of cloud formations observed at exact moments and locations. Each title records the date, time, and geospatial coordinates of the observation, locating an ephemeral atmospheric condition within a specific point in time and space. I think of the series as an extinction diary, an ongoing record of forms that exist only briefly before disappearing. Through sustained observation, I attend to subtle distinctions within a phenomenon that is continually forming, changing, and disappearing.

Language also functions structurally within the series. The bilingual titles draw upon Japanese words that distinguish particular cloud formations and conditions. Terms such as Unkai (a sea of clouds), Chōun (clouds resembling a flock of birds), and Unkan (the intervals, or ma, between clouds) direct attention toward distinctions that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Together, the works explore how language and observation shape our perception of the continually changing sky.