One of my ongoing fascinations is with wind. Growing up in Tennessee, I was fascinated with the way I could track a gust of wind through the tree-canopies overhead, just by listening. I could see those trees swaying 10 feet or more in one direction or another…but I could also hear the wood. Trees that big creak and moan when they bend.
Though my artworks have taken many turns, stylistically and in media, the wild weather I experienced under those tree canopies has always informed my work. I think more broadly now, considering my adopted Southern Californian landscape and climate while looking at the larger global climate-influenced landscapes I see virtually.
In the last year I started looking at dust devils and up-drafts. They are a real-time indicator of global warming. They occur when the ground is hotter than the air around it. It can cause a real-time funnel, pulling air up, rather than dropping down from the clouds like a tornado. The hotter the planet gets, the bigger the dust devils and updrafts.
