i didn’t have a plan for this design. i just started placing stems head to toe, and kept building outward. i’m not claiming it’s anything that belongs in the louvre, but what i like is that i just kept playing until it felt done, and when it was done, i kept looking at it, and every time i looked, i liked how the design fell across my gaze. it felt balanced, and shapely, and not too symmetrical and just a little bit messy, and close enough to a 4×6 dimension that it fit comfortably inside the frame. i may have mentioned before that one of my favorite definitions of art comes from a description of how they make hershey’s chocolate. basically there is a single guy who is the official taster, and he just keeps tasting until he feels he can say, “this is hershey’s chocolate.” he couldn’t possibly say exactly what all the elements are. he just knows. so i hope you appreciate the hershey’s chocolateness of this prairie clover pattern. but if you don’t, it’s ok. because i do.

purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea)

sucker lake trail, saint paul, minnesota