Small and Innocent
Near the end of summer, I passed this little plant on one of my walks.
It was growing right beside the sidewalk, easy enough to miss. It wasn’t big or dramatic. By late August, most things around it were already starting to show that summer was winding down.
But this little guy had made it.
For a short while, anyway, he had his moment in the sun.
That was what stayed with me.
Later, when I looked at the photograph again, I started wondering what kind of tiny world might fit beneath those flowers. A ladder made from twigs. A warm lantern. A mouse curled up under the petals after a long day. A snail nearby, keeping quiet company.
None of that was really there, of course.
But the little plant was.
And sometimes that is enough.
Something small survives long enough to catch your eye, and for one brief moment it becomes the most important thing in the whole scene.
He had his moment in the sun.
The Shape in the Branches
I took this picture on a walk downtown in Dallas one summer morning.
Everything was still green then, so it had to be early enough in the season that the browning hadn’t really started yet. What caught my attention was a bunch of branches leaning up against a tree. At first glance, it didn’t seem like much. But the more I looked, the stranger it felt.
The branches were different from each other, but also somehow related. Their sizes were fairly similar, yet each one had its own little bend, twist, or curve. That was the part that got me. It looked less like random branches and more like something trying to gather itself into a form.
Right then I knew I wanted to take the picture home and see what was hiding inside it.
That’s how this piece began.
What I liked about the original scene was that it already felt halfway to becoming something else. It didn’t need to be forced. It just needed to be noticed. Once I looked at it that way, the figure started to appear—a woodland being, part guardian and part mystery, wrapped around the tree like it belonged there all along.
That’s what I enjoy about pieces like this. I’m not inventing them from empty space. I’m starting with something real—something I actually saw on a walk—and letting the imagination grow out of what was already there.
This one has a strong nature feeling to it, but it also carries a little tension. It’s not threatening exactly, but it isn’t completely explainable either. It feels like one of those things you might pass by without noticing, unless the light hits it right or your mind happens to be open that day.
Then all at once, the ordinary changes.
A pile of branches becomes a presence.
And a walk through town becomes a moment of mystery.
