Jennifer Upton calls it “arting.”

Some others may call “art making.”

Sometimes, I just have to do it, whatever it is that I do. There is a need to create something, and often I don’t know what it is that I’m creating. I don’t know how to classify it.

I take a photograph that I’ve made and I change it.

An “ordinary” dogwood becomes this:

Wild blackberries become this:

And a heron becomes this:

Each version speaks in ways that I can’t define. And maybe I shouldn’t try to define the images. I know that I wanted to experiment with a different look. Sometimes, I think I know what my artistic style is, and then again, something changes.

In the meantime, I will keep my open for beauty and simplicity and reverence around me.