Cloudspirations

Me
Jul 23, 2015
2 min read

@Chelsea, Manhattan, A Rooftop of Starett-Lehigh Building Pictures taken with iphone 6, #NOFILTER / edits (will Apple's world gallery please scout me)

The sky was beautiful in New York City today.

The humidity was mild and the sun was blaring amidst a very blue sky.

A deep blue sky of the mediterranean, almost of autumn afternoons. Puffs of white glided slowly. They were all so closely looming ahead of me that I felt like I could reach them, that they would drop on me any moment.

Since a young age I was mesmerized by shapeshifting things, and I loved clouds more than anything. I love gazing at their movement, as much as I love gazing at stars.

I feel like many share a similar love. Early July, Sean told me something.

"Smoke is never in the same shape, ever. You can't even manufacture it to ever look the same."

It was so obviously factual, but so true at the same time. It struck me in a very enlightening way. He told me that was why he developed a liking for smoke, and that was why he was so infatuated by it. I remembered having similar feelings looking into the deep oceans growing up in Western Australia. The movement would not stray far from its current, but they would never be the same.

I think humans have a very innate curiosity, fear, lust, desire for elusive things as such. Time, love, smoke, and clouds? Maybe those feelings lead people to write, paint, photograph, hold on to memories?

To this day, I enjoy observing how clouds are expressed in different ways in art; how people grasp onto something so ungraspable. Or attempt to. Lying down in the sun during a break from work, I was in a pleasant bliss to realize I still daydream of the looming puffs even though the world teaches me that they are mere water particles in the air. Maybe that is why I really love everything from the impressionist era (I mean, who doesn’t?).

Claude Monet's <Nightfall>

Claude Monet's <The Beach at St. Adresse>, @the Arts Institute of Chicago

The artists in that era really depicted clouds in what I think the closest way to their true forms: in pinks, reds, purples and oranges. Underwhelming and discreet, overwhelming and empowering. Not always puffy but scattered, sporadic and sometimes engulfing the whole sky.