Another History of Clouds

Essay for the artist monograph Nantucket Pastoral by Zenas Hutcheson | 2022

From the essay:

A diary is nothing if not a double-edged sword. With the freedom of self-narration comes the inevitability of self-scrutiny. With the aim to verbally construct one’s intimate cosmologies comes the impulse to selectively assemble their parts. Like a self-portrait, a diary embeds private reflections within a series of performative gestures. An audience is never lacking, after all: the diarist both presents and receives their own story in the act of writing. 

In earlier days, the earnest self-reflexivity involved in diary-keeping would be a matter of personal choice. Those averse to chronicling their own contemplations might just opt out of jotting them down. In a world of obligatory quarantine and self-isolation, however, diaristic thinking is virtually inescapable. The domestic confines and local geographies we inhabit unavoidably become sites for examining our own priorities, decisions, and moods. Social circles may be smaller, but feelings these days feel much bigger. We might attempt to sublimate them in everyday rituals, but eventually these rituals crystallize and grow into mirror-like objects: things through which we can’t help but see, consider, and evaluate ourselves. Under present circumstances, we no longer decide to follow diaristic impulses. They follow us. 

If these slippages in thinking stir up apprehension or doubt, then the photographs in this book offer an antidote. They absorb our “big feelings” and demonstrate that within those feelings lie possibilities for placidity and grace. The narratives assembled here have no distinct origins, no linear construction, and no discernible or predictable conclusions. Initiated during summer 2020, these works are not diaristic in a traditional sense, but they do evoke collective experiences of wandering through a vast, continually unfolding story.