This gorgeous print entered the museum’s collection at the close of the exhibition Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography. The artist, James Cormier, answered the museum’s call for submissions to the juried portion of the exhibition by sending two similar prints, both of which were accepted and toured with the exhibition when it traveled to the University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Looking at Departing Clouds takes time. Just as when one stargazes, the eye has to get used to searching for subtle shifts of value; what initially seems like impenetrable shadow is, on closer examination, an area that holds tenebrous–yet discernible–detail. The photograph portrays the rugged, rocky coast of Downeast Maine in black-and-white, with the view looking out to sea under a night sky. The rocks’ sturdy and static appearance is diametrically opposed to that of the clouds, sky, and surf, all of which are depicted blurred or streaked due to their motion during the photograph’s long exposure. On viewing the image, I accept its invitation to ponder time and impermanence. The stars – aeons old– etched images on the camera’s negative with light born thousands of years ago; their arced traces describe Earth’s twenty-four hour rotation on its axis. The ocean’s pounding waves are averaged out to a gentle blur over the minutes required to expose the film, making them seem insufficient to the task of slowly smoothing and eroding the rock shoreline.

When I encounter Departing Clouds, my mind also turns to thoughts about connections. The ocean is connected to terra firma by a constantly shifting coastline, and the Earth is connected to the Moon through gravity, the invisible force that endlessly pulls the tides from low to high and back again. And gravity connects us to the stars seen as streaks in this photograph, despite their astronomical distance from us. With Departing Clouds, boundaries seem to dissolve, and I experience a calming sense of connection to the cosmos. And the minutes I spend gazing at this picture connect me to those the artist spent standing out on the rocky coast of Maine, gazing at the stars though the clouds, distilling time, motion, gravity, all into an image of disarming simplicity.

Departing Clouds, along with other images shown in Starstruck: The Fine Art of Astrophotography, is reproduced in the catalogue available through the college store.