A short essay, Written 19th June 2026

I find it really special to look for art in places it distinctly isn’t. Cloud watching for example. People lie down and try to see images in clouds, as if the sky were a canvas being painted by the natural forces of our planet.

I don’t always find it very easy to see these grand works of art. Sometimes I find that difficult, like the world is critiquing my creativity. Clouds are just clouds, branches just move in the wind. But there is beauty in these things as they are, which I grow to appreciate more every day. And the times I do see some randomly occurring art are all the more special for their rarity. Memories of these bring me an amount of a joy I’m consistently surprised by, but do my best to treasure.

A few weeks ago I was sat on the steps in the back garden of my Mum’s house (the use of ‘back’ implies the existence of a front garden. This is incorrect.). It was a sunny day with a gentle breeze, and I was watching the branches of a tree that rose from the opposite side of the garden fence. I may have been listening to music, which often has great impact on me, but in this moment it is not what impacted me. Two small-ish branches stuck out of the top of the tree, perpendicular and only a couple feet apart. Both of these branches had a smaller branch, pointing slightly upwards and towards the other. These smaller branches were arms, and the initial branches bodies, of two people reaching to one another for an embrace. At times their arms crossed and they held each other, but as the wind shifted they blew apart and were reaching from afar. It was a tale of two lovers, kept apart by the whims of forces beyond their control. Or it was someones child, moving away as an adult, only to reunite with their parent on occasion. It was both of these stories and a million more, all somewhat sad but endlessly and undeniably beautiful. All of this entirely within two small branches of a small tree in a small village nestled in the countryside of this (relatively) small country. What a wonderful world I saw in this moment!

A number of months ago (a number I do not nor shall I try to remember) I went to the beach to sit about, read, and eat a pasty. It was the time of year when everybody was taking their dogs to the beach, which I enjoy immensely, as I feel dog-watching is a severely underrated pastime. There was one Golden Labrador who I was especially amused by. The silly little guy was carrying around a driftwood branch as long as itself and a half. Oblivious to how amusingly disproportionate this was, (unrelated but this is proving difficult to write as my cat seems to take great offence to my writing and is determined to get in the way) the dog ran around dragging this stick behind, carving lines into the sand. (Cat’s gone now :( ) The pattern it left behind was nothing more than random lines and circles but it was impossible not to see the beach as a canvas and the stick a paintbrush. I couldn’t help but ask myself; ‘Is this dog an artist?’ I am under no illusion that this was anything but a wholly silly train of thought, but it did get me thinking. The picture this dog had drawn would be universally panned were it put in a gallery, yet I found plenty of joy in it. Who am I then to judge my own or others artistry, when there was such worth for me to find in this simple, random sketch created unknowingly by a dog. I refuse to believe that any work of art can be entirely without worth, in whatever form that may be.

There are more instances I could write of I’m sure, but I wish to find my cat and apologize (for what I don’t know, but she knows better than I do). In the meantime I will continue to look for these randomly occurring pieces of art, and I urge you, should you be someone other than myself, to do the same.