[Ann Drysdale]

I like the idea that you are inspired by your digital adaptations to attempt to produce the same effects, hands-on and one-off. In fact, the thought delights me.

I am still worrying at the notional question "what is art?" and, by extension, "what isn't?". (If only because it makes such a change from having to answer the question "what is poetry?")

Discussions (as here) of process and intention really help with both those questions, which I often think can only be answered in our own voices, with the words "look" and "listen".

I am not inspired by the first picture; it's just what's left of irises or such, collapsed over the first showings of what Spring may become. Covering, cherishing, soon to be sacrificed to the first bonfires; things I understand because I know how it feels to be in gardens, and the now of them. (Oh, no! you snipped the new growth and not the debris...)

The second picture is also highly combustible. It is wood shavings, the results of the workings of a perfectly-sharpened block plane. I can almost smell them, I could almost identify the types of wood. Knowing, because you told me, that my woods were your weeds made me smile.

The third picture, "your" picture, has moved away from what I know and become frippery, giftery, quilly-bits that no longer move me. You have lost me along the way but have found the feeling of the loaded brush, the varying pressure of your own hand. May you find joy in it - and thank you.