I deemed the weather offensive, the way the air lay on me like a giant tongue – clammy, warm and gritty as embers.
Galveston Nic Pizzolatto
Sometimes the weather that isn’t there is all the weather you need.
Buddy Bunting 2004 ink on paper
You can drown in it, even it you’re already dead.
Andres Serrano Piss Christ 1987
sky’s insult to land, a loogie hawked out of the sky lands with a muffling thud on a pine tree. The tree tops a mountain, with white air
surrounding the tree as a reverberation.
Debra Baxter, Spent, late 1990s
If your world is the inside of a jar, what surrounds you is your weather.
Lauren Grossman, 1989
Too wet to plow: Juniper Shuey Untitled
c-print
12.5″ x 15.5″
edition of 3
2005
John Cheever once said he “missed the sky” in the novels of a contemporary. Elmore Leonard isn’t likely to say the same. One of his rules of writing is, “Don’t start with the weather.” Visual artists can make the weather primary without the burden of adjectives.
Grant Barnhart Killing Time with Sleeping Pills and Holding On
16×20, Acrylic on canvas (2009)
In honor of Pizzolatto, whose debut novel Galveston is excellent noir, I’ll end with its weather equivalent.
Grant Barnhart, Two Road Agents Meet at an Impasse
48×48, Acrylic on canvas 2009 (Ambach & Rice)
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