It's Clouds illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all. - Joni Mitchell.
Last week I was looking at images of cloud formations online, when I came across a site called: The Cloud Appreciation Society. I was amazed!! I was delighted!! Cloud Appreciators had to be my kind of people, by whom I mean folks whose eyes wouldn't narrow or glaze over at a mention of fallstreaks or mackerel skies; people who wouldn't look at me sideways when I told them I was a cloud chaser; people who would actually get excited over the beauty of clouds.
As they say on the Society's website:

"At The Cloud Appreciation Society we love clouds, we’re not ashamed to say it and we’ve had enough of people moaning about them ... see how we are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’."

Most people think of weather as a subject to break the ice or as small talk, but I love deep discussions of weather, storms, precipitation - and cloud chasing. Yeah, yeah, I know everyone's heard of storm chasers, those dare-devil types who froth spittle as they careen over the Great Midwestern Plains... But we cloud chasers are perhaps a little more sedate. We're just as happy seeking the rare crescent cloud or a chorus line of mare's tails as a funnel cloud (well, nearly). And though I may zip along the road as quickly as legally possible, I'm not likely to encounter anything more dangerous than the strange looks of motorists or homeowners as I repeatedly speed up and slow down, pull over, turn around or jump from my idling car to sprint for a clear line of sight.






Clouds don't last. They are but transitory phenomena, to be savored by the eye and captured by the lens - and to someday find their way onto my canvases.

I'm excited about joining up for the nominal fee of L4. or $5.68 (US Currency).

I'll be member #14, 401...




Cloud-walls of the morning's gray
Faced with amber column,
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn.
May-mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering,
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning