While hiking on Mt. Hood earlier in my life I could get close to the cloud cover that was often low against the mountain range coming in from the coast. They would often be gray and raining with mist and blurred edges and halos. The end of a shower meant the landscape would be washed clean with the air shimmering and surfaces drenched with color from sunlight. The two ideas: luminous color and airy surfaces have stayed with me.

There is a translucent beauty in cells under a microscope in a lab. They pulse with life. They are struggling to move and grow. I think of molecules as metaphor-everything moves and changes; motion is constant, migration is constant, and thinking is constant as in the creation of ideas and change in the brain. Making these small dots is an exercise in following one’s nose. I have to look exactly at the dot that I am making and no where else. It leads to a meditation as Thich Nhat Hanh says: “The person who practices mindfulness should be no less awake than the driver of a car. Be as awake as a person walking on high stilts-any misstep could cause the walker to fall.”

My thanks go to the Ragdale Foundation for the seeds of this series that were first developed in their serene environment. And previous to that at MacDowell Colony I noticed a huge Luna moth unfurling slowly on my cabin wall. I watched it for a long time admiring its wings and spots. It was as big as my palm. Not until much later did I recognize its influence in abstract patterns and translucent color and the ideas of impermanence and change.