Michael Terra

For whatever reason, I have always looked up.

It has fostered a lifelong love of the trees, the stars, the birds, and clouds.

Many years ago, when I was doing really large oil paintings, I went through a “cloudscape” phase and I loved it. Time has brought me through so many different alleys and paths and now, here I am again, loving painting cloudscapes.

I love the way light caresses the surface of clouds; how shadow creeps up from below and the edges are a consensual illusion. I love it when the light seems to come, slowly, from within, and then again when it seems to tear through the fabric of the cloud in a crescendo! If you wait, patiently, all of the colors will appear in the sky on the surface of the clouds.

I can’t separate clouds from humankind.
In the same way that we are all connected, the sky is above us all and we have no choice but to share the clouds (we cannot possess them!). The farther away a cloud is, the more it looks the same to the most people. The closer a cloud is, the more likely that it will look different from nearby locations (while being aloof and untouchable).

The words are also an expression of our shared human experience. The stories that we all live through (that are the skin that wraps us in identity) are the echoes that I try and capture and reflect. The poetry is the toughest part of what I’m doing because, if I’m doing the job, I have to get completely out of the way of the truth.

I think we can all look up and see an endless story in the clouds above us- a story that has no “correct” answer or judgement, a story that evolves, a story that we share.
As always, I look forward to sharing with you!