This photograph, another in my ‘painting’ series, came about courtesy of nature and an early December evening in California. When I gazed at the changing cloud patterns the beauty of natures paintbrush amazed me and the longer I stared the more I realized this was a moving and quickly disappearing canvas that I had to capture, even if it was to go no further than to remind me of an astonishing atmosphere. I took this photograph long before I had the notion to release a series of cards and in fact had no commercial use for it or the other ‘sky paintings’, all I knew was that above me was the most fabulous natural imagery. I am not a religious person by ‘congregational’ standards but I do believe that there is beauty and perfection all around us and in my heart I felt the power of that beauty as I looked at this sky and to me - that was a fantastic religious experience . . . . .

There is a most astonishing addition to this story which happened after I had finished designing the cards. Many times over my ‘artistic’ lifetime my mother has said that whilst carrying me as a baby she would always look at natures beauty trying to transfer it and the ability to see beauty in all things to me. It was after creating these cards that I thought I had come the closest to that which she wished for me - so in my weekly call to London I decided to tell her that fact. I was about to read her the passage on this card when she went off on a tangent and quoted two lines from a poem stating that she didn’t know what the poem was and she always missed most of it (being used as a commercial on British TV) but remembered this passage and always thought of me when she saw it, as she quoted the lines I went icy cold - without knowing it she had pinpointed my favorite poem and quoted the exact two lines I had placed on this and every card I produce . . . . .

“What is this life if full of care
we have no time to stop and stare . . .”