Dan Barstow, Member 41,557 introduced us to the ‘Earth Music Theatre’ which he curates. Each week he features a new movie and in this one he welcomes us to Earth’s orbit, accompanied by three Bach Sonatas transcribed for guitar. Each Sonata features four movements, offering space to reflect and explore the harmony of music while gazing at our planet below. These exquisite performances by Dr. Nicholas Goluses, a master guitarist and professor at the Eastman School of Music, are brought to life with stunning photography captured by astronauts of ISS Expedition 71 in 2024.
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December 28, 2024
December 24, 2024
Monica Rees, Member 58,527, of California came across this concrete block whilst out walking and whilst not the artist, she told us about the Love the Bulb website which describes the area: “The Albany Bulb is a former construction debris landfill on San Francisco Bay where people have been making informal outdoor sculptures and paintings for decades, much of it on large concrete blocks. It’s home to 150 species of birds, huge trees, wildflowers, amazing views, and lots of walking trails.”
December 21, 2024
Jill Willder, Member 35,562, reminded us of the wonderful Kitty MacFarlane’s song ‘Namer of Clouds’. It’s also prompted us to remember that Kitty interviewed Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Member 001, about clouds for BBC Radio 4’s “Open Country” programme in December 2020.
December 17, 2024
Thellen Levey, Member 39,677, sent this image he took whilst undergoing hospital treatment. He told us “when I first got on the table in my radiation room, this is what I saw above me. It’s not a view through a skylight – the designers of the room simply replaced some ceiling tiles with images of clouds moving through a radiant sky. Uplifting in every sense of the word – when you find yourself under what seems like a dark cloud, a bright cloud can show up at just the right moment”.
December 14, 2024
Massimiliano Squadroni sent us this timelapse taken on 3rd December 2024 entitled
“Snow shower” from Auronzo di Cadore, Dolomites, Italy
December 10, 2024
Sara Austin Bailey, member 50,249 sent us this cloud-inspired poem from her home in North Carolina.
December 7, 2024
Mike Midlo, a muscian sent us the link to a song he wrote a few years ago saying “I thought it might take you up there for a ride in the autumnal cumulonimbus”. The song can be found on his record “MidLo: Tow Steps & Waltzes”
December 3, 2024
Martin Pilcher, Member 3,838, sent this painting and told us “during the Covid Lockdown in the UK, I found myself looking at photos from Africa and dreaming that I was on safari…..and so I picked up my paintbrush instead of my passport”.
December 2, 2024
Massimiliano Squadroni, continues his project “The Sunrise from Alps to Apennines”. This timelapse was filmed over Casati refuge at Cevedale, Italy at 3269m – Forni Glacier (Sondrio) on 23rd October 2024 this year.
November 26, 2024
Nick Houvras, Member 7,367 sent us his poem “A Wish”
Image: Crepuscular Rays over Somerset, England © Helen Crawley
A Wish
Don’t you wish you were a cloud?
Flying free where ever the wind sent you!
Looking down from up above on sunny ground!
Or wet leaves you sent your water to.
And then you slowly disappear from the heavens that held you.
Just as the earth holds us we too go with or without a sin.
But everyone asks where did that cloud go?
And so do all of us here now on Mother Earth!
© Nick Houvras, 2023
November 23, 2024
Dan Barstow, Member 41,557 introduced us to the ‘Earth Music Theatre’ which he curates. Each week he features a new movie and this one is a montage of photos and music, celebrating One Earth – all in shades of blue. Astronauts took these serene and beautiful photos during December 2023, on ISS Expedition 70. All shades of blue, yet so diverse. For the music, Steve Thomas crafted his dreamlike Guitarscape, resonating with these mesmerizing views.
November 19, 2024
Natalie Christensen is an award winning photographer whose focus is ordinary settings, seeking the sublime in colour fields and shadow. She now lives in New Mexico and like many artists, was drawn to the distinctive Southwestern light. The above piece is entitled “she had an idea”.
You can see more of her work on her website
November 16, 2024
Massimiliano Squadroni, continues his project “The Sunrise from Alps to Apennines” and this timelapse was filmed over Frontignano, Belvedere at 1650m on 3 November this year (Apennines, Monti Sibillini, Italy). He told us he would also like to start an appeal to save the glaciers.
November 12, 2024
Minnie Biggs, Member 4,330, recently sent her poem about the skies over Bhutan, which is situated on the Himalayas’ eastern edge. We’ve accompanied it with an image from Michael Ellis “Aladdin’s lamp spotted over Bhutan, South Asia“
Go to Bhutan
Cloud heaven
we are looking at the clouds in the distance
we are below the clouds
we are in the middle of the clouds
We are above the clouds,
Looking at more clouds
in the clouds is different
Than above or below
Wet damp not rain wet
And the mountains
That meet the clouds
Embrace the clouds
Are embraced by the clouds
Intermingle with the clouds
seldom one without the other
In Bhutan
Clouds
Heaven
© Minnie Biggs
November 9, 2024
Kathleen Frank is an artist who now paints landscapes after many years specialising in woodcarving and fabric printing. The above painting is called “Hogan’s Storm”.
You can see more of her work on her website
November 5, 2024
Michael Menger, Member 16,382 was able to observe clouds at their own height 500 m above the Atlantic on the southwest coast of Madeira. He told us “it was a stunning spectacle at sunset which left me with mouth agape”.
November 2, 2024
Ann Kraus, Member 48,329 has an upcoming show in NYC. The title of the show is “Spirit In The Sky” and features her cloud paintings and skyscapes. This will be her third solo show at the historic Pleiades Gallery and will run from 29th October to 23rd November.
More information can be found at www.Pleiadesgallery.com or www.annkrausstudio.com
October 29, 2024
Dan Barstow, Member 41,557 introduced us to the ‘Earth Music Theatre’ which he curates. Each week he features a new movie with one of the latest being ‘Pathway to the Centre’ which musically describes walking a labyrinth. Set to Bach’s Cello Suite 1 in G Major, performed by harpist Laura Zaerr, the journey takes you from serene clouds to the eye of a hurricane and back to serenity.
October 26, 2024
Sherry Palmer, Member 27,151 recently made a return visit to the Isle of Skye from her home in New England, USA. She told us “Painting the mountain on the mainland, Beinn Sgritheall, was a different challenge! It glowed in purples and blues. The mainland hills and Skye in general, continue to have me in awe of their beauty, after 36 years coming here to paint!”
October 22, 2024
Cloud enthusiast Dora Drake, shared ‘In the Clouds’ an album by Michele Ippolito. Its relaxing ‘atmospheric’ music is great to listen to whilst watching clouds.
October 19, 2024
Kathleen Grace Bennett, Member 20,977 told us her favourite thing is to paint clouds. She lives along the New England coast of the US and this is one of her oil paintings entitled “Sunrise Splendor”.
You can see more of her work on her website
October 15, 2024
Eileen Hennemann, Member 27,616 was extraordinarily lucky to have her camera ready to video these Asperitas clouds over Ontario, Canada on 6th October 2024. She says “We dashed outside to see a narrow swatch of storm clouds that had creeped up from the US midwest and actually accelerated through our area.”
October 11, 2024
Julia Dedieu, Member 63,285 sent this, her second work in the “Azure Sky” series entitled “Cumulus congestus of azure sky“. It is painted in oil on canvas.
You can see more of Julia’s work on her website
October 7, 2024
Simon Rickman, a cloud enthusiast, was inspired by our Cloud Poetry section to send us a Haiku he wrote a few years ago. He also sent the featured photograph taken on 7th April 2023 near his home in the UK.
purposed clouds glide by
on missions to somewhere else
leaving me behind
© Simon Rickman
October 5, 2024
Starr Sutherland, Member 58,384, wrote to tell us about a small show she is part of at the Far Out Gallery, San Francisco from 20th September to 27th October 2024. She told us that “these photographs reflect my fascination with Ocean Beach. During the pandemic years, to get away from the computer, I spent most sunsets walking on the beach”.
October 1, 2024
Kathy Miles is a poet living in West Wales; her fourth full collection was published by Indigo Dreams in 2020. This is a poem she wrote about Luke Howard with a photograph by Jan Boles of Anti-crepuscular rays over Idaho, US.
Cloud-Whisperer
after Luke Howard, 1802
He named them because he could.
For the thrill of cirrus on his tongue,
cumulus and stratus a banquet
on the palate. Obsession ached
inside him, the need to claim
and classify. The logic of shape.
He envied their resolve,
the purpose that kept them feral,
wandering from place to place
like nomads, always heading
to the next clear patch of sky
that argued its blue emptiness.
Seeing them submerged in sea
or lake, he wanted to raise
them like a grounded swift,
throw them high as he could,
then call them back to his side
by the names that he had gifted.
Now I watch their floss and bustle,
like a woman hurrying to work
worries building inside her; ragged
fractus, weary with the day,
shapeshifting into mist, keeping
its nose to the grindstone.
Their bellies are full of storm
and fire, while mine has emptied
of passion. I think of the man who
organised the skies; how nothing
pleased him more than waking
to quilts of nimbus, cirrostratus.
© Kathy Miles 2023
September 28, 2024
Scott Willhite, works from his studio in Boulder, Colorado. His traditional oil paintings focus on the natural landscapes of the surrounding area with this one being entitled “Brewing”.
You can see more of his work on his website. You can also follow him on Instagram
September 24, 2024
Dan Barstow, Member 41,557 and Education Mission Specialist at the Association of Space Explorers introduced us to the ‘Earth Movie Theatre’. Working with world-class musicians they combine music with ISS movies of Earth. The one here is part of the Trio Sonata for Organ by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by world class organist Brian Hoffmann with a day view of the Earth taken by astronauts on the International Space Station.
September 17, 2024
Chuck Metcalfe, Member 61,468, sent us a poem he wrote in November 2023 and a photograph he took at his camp in Stockton, New York, that inspired it.
Ladder to the Clouds
If I could build a ladder to the clouds, we could climb so high into the sky.
We could frolic and play, and stay all day, just the two of us;
while we jump and bounce from Stratus to Cumulus.
We might sing and dance on Altostratus; or perchance ride the mares’ tails of Cirrus Uncinus .
Amongst the Cirrus we would search freely in, until we find a parhelion; petting that sundog we could do, and maybe see its halo too.
Nimbostratus would not ruin our day, if above the rain we were able to stay.
Even Cumulonimbus with its flashy show would look different from above you know.
We would have our own park without the crowds, if I could build a ladder to the clouds.
© 11/17/2023 Chuck Metcalfe
September 14, 2024
Joan Pogalies, Member 62,612 from Ohio USA, created these Lake Erie clouds. They are photos on metal at 3ft x 5ft each.
You can find out more about her and her creations on her website
September 10, 2024
“From Above the Clouds” is an excerpt from the composition “Wasteness of the Sky” by Anita Andreis
September 7, 2024
Resa Blatman, Member 57,717, is an artist from Somerville, MA and recently submitted some of her cloud related art. The main image is called “Climbing the Hill to Consciousness, 2023” painted in oil and acrylic on wood panel (size: 48h x 36w inches). She told us “I’m currently making a lot of moss paintings for an upcoming solo show. All of them have clouds as their backdrop because, for me, clouds and moss are the perfect pairing”
You can see more of her work on her website
“Little Green” is a solo exhibition of moss and sky paintings by Resa Blatman
McCoy Art Gallery at Merrimack College in Andover, Massachusetts, U.S.
Opening reception (free and open to the public): Friday, September 20, 2024, 6:30-8 pm
https://www.merrimack.edu/academics/rogers/art-galleries/
Oil and acrylic on wood panel
24h x 18w inches
Oil and acrylic on wood panel
12h x 9w inches
Oil and acrylic on wood panel
24h x 18w inches
September 4, 2024
Leah is a cloud enthusiast who regularly watches the clouds from her window at work.
Image: Fibratus over Yarra Glen, Australia by Phil Chapman
Whispers in the Sky
Soft whispers drift in endless skies,
Where clouds like dreams in silence rise.
They dance in hues of white and gray,
A gentle pause in life’s busy day.
They paint the dawn in shades of gold,
A canvas vast, a story told.
By noon they gather, thick and deep,
Guarding secrets that they keep.
At dusk, they blush in twilight’s glow,
As day concedes to night’s soft flow.
In moonlit nights, they softly glide,
A silver veil where stars can hide.
Transient, free, they roam the blue,
Ephemeral as morning dew.
They teach us that to drift and roam,
Is sometimes how we find our home.
August 31, 2024
Claire Bywater, Member 55,303, is a painter who includes clouds in most of her work. The main image is entitled “Cloud Atlas (iv)” and the one below “Cloud Atlas (ii)”
You can see more of her work on her website
August 27, 2024
From the Earth Movie Theatre, this is Jazz Clouds Day, by Steve Thomas’ Folktales and Fusions. Dan Barstow, Member 41,557 and Education Mission Specialist at the Association of Space Explorers introduced us to the ‘Earth Movie Theatre’ and we are thoroughly enjoying the music of world-class musicians combined with ISS movies of Earth.
August 24, 2024
Beverly Leach, Member 26,259 is an artist who loves the skies over Alabama, USA. She draws using pastels from the photos she takes of the magnificent clouds she sees.
August 20, 2024
Vyacheslav Konoval is a poet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Many of his poems have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian and Polish but this is one he wrote in English for CAS members to enjoy.
Image: “A Sunset over Kiev, Ukraine” © Vera Uzhva
A dark blue cloud crawls across the sky
A dark blue cloud crawls across the sky,
It rains every day.
As if punishment is pouring from God.
Fluffy fresh caresses,
crowded street of
stockpiled ice fragments.
My body doesn’t obey
It seemed to be dozing,
limps tiredly in laziness.
© Vyacheslav Konoval
August 17, 2024
The Portland Gallery is preparing an exhibition by contemporary artist James Lynch. The exhibition, Light as Dreams, brings together over 25 works at the gallery, which is his first solo exhibition since announcing his new representation with them. His atmospheric scenes of the English landscape, explore the artist’s fascination with both the sky and landscape of Wessex. The exhibition will also include a selection of works focussed on cloud formations.
The exhibition will take place from 26 September to 11 October 2024 at The Portland Gallery, 3 Bennet Street, London, SW1A 1RP
More details can be found on the Portland Gallery website or by emailing Esme Dollow
August 13, 2024
Pertti Björn, contacted us to suggest Suite: Clouds (Rain) by David Gates: Electra Records 1973 for our Music to Watch Clouds by section. He told us “This is a masterpiece, every cloud watcher should know”
August 10, 2024
Massimiliano Squadroni sent us part of his project “the sunrise from alps to apennines”. He told us that he wants to use his videos to launch an appeal to save the glaciers.
