This morning my partner and I sat in the hot tub as the sun rose, watching billowy clouds rise up in the distance as rays of sunlight kissed their marshmallow tops. I was overcome with a need to touch them, so I said, “Lets go fly,” and we headed to the hangar. As Alec got his plane out, the clouds were draping the western horizon in a grey gauze. We took off but only flew for a few minutes. From the air we could see that the storm was moving in fast, agreeing that it looked ominous and that we should return to earth.
Ominous comes from the Latin word "omen," a sign or portent. Usually it’s used in a negative context, but I don’t always experience it that way. All morning I felt like the sky was trying to talk to me. Something that I needed was rising up. I can’t explain with words what the prairie feels like when the green earth whispers to the vitalizing sky, and it quivers and responds.
And how can I explain how it feels when the storm moves in, skies turning a dark gunmetal grey in the distance but the sun still shining on emerald fields? What can you do when you’re overwhelmed by it all? You stand out there in the open air, waiting for it, somewhere in your soul secretly begging for annihilation. Then the gust front hits at 40 miles an hour, taking your breath away as you run for cover from the rain and hail, laughing and crying at the same time.
There are no words, only emotions to be evoked through brush strokes and pigment and texture. I don’t know any other way to express them. This is what the sky is telling me; I am a messenger, and purpose here is to be overwhelmed with the beauty and wildness of this world. It is a blessing. It is a curse.
Today I had no choice but to retreat, soaking wet, to the sanctum of my studio to do the work of transmuting awe into paintings. And now as I sit an my easel, accompanied by the rhythm of rain on the tin roof and the muted mumbling of thunder.