Thunderstorms can be unpredictable. They rise upward with one heaving bulge after another until they spread into a stratospheric anvil top. They block the way of an aircraft with deep purple curtains, or even worse, with green walls that crackle and glow with lightning. Sometimes an F-14 Tomcat like this one follows holes and corridors past the storm’s lurking dragons and into a strange, quiet cathedral of cloud. Here shafts of sunlight find gaps and flood through with rich golden colors as though they’d struck stained glass windows. The cumulus seems almost welcoming here, soft and bright. There’s a patch of blue sky above, so this is part of the world, even though it looks like dream country.

“This quiet awesome place surrounded by great power is God’s throne room,” says the artist, “where pilots and artists sometimes come to pay their respects.”