Clouds move. They may appear static, but they are really being driven by wind — a force which we cannot see. In my latest linocut, I play with repetition in the form of a diptych to think about cloud movement as an illustration of that that illusive wind.
Repetition and two images are the key
As I noted in a previous blog, a diptych is a pair of images that are created to be displayed together. Here I chose to stagger the same long cloud formation, where part of it is somewhat repeated in each image. I was not concerned with making this repetition apparent, so you can only see the actual repetition in a few places. What I wanted you to see is your eye perceiving separate frames, like Eadweard Muybridge’s famous running horse demonstration.
With the repetition we get movement, and then the question becomes, what is moving the clouds? Here the angle of the clouds and the waving grasses suggest that a billowing wind is creating the scene, even though the wind itself is invisible.
This wind is amazing. At lower elevations such as this, perhaps 5,000 feet, the clouds can sometimes seem to be static. As the air pressure changes, however, even low clouds can sail by at incredible speeds. At the height of the jet stream, about 5 – 7 miles up, wind speed can push clouds at up to 175 miles per hour. That would be difficult indeed to capture in any two-dimensional format.
The challenges to capture our fast moving world without aid of electronic media continues…
What else is invisible?
