For a while, I kept drawing trees with little buildings inside them.

Not in a particularly practical way. They were not meant for a collection. They did not fit neatly into a repeating wallpaper pattern. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing with them, if I’m honest.

I just had this small whisper of an idea. Every time I went for a walk through the woods, my imagination would see doors in tree cracks and windows in knots. I had to find a way to get them from my head into something concrete. And when I did, I was drawn to them. I would draw one, hang it up next to my desk, and find it really satisfying to look at.

The first one I drew was a library. Then a French restaurant. Then I got kind of stuck. I got caught up in my head. I began to ask myself, What is the purpose of these? And that is when the story fell apart.

At the time, the trees did not have a purpose. They were simply something I felt pulled to make.

I think that can be a hard thing to trust.

There are so many reasons to wait until an idea makes sense. Until you know where it belongs, whether it will sell, whether I’m just wasting my time, whether it can become something finished and useful and explainable. And sometimes I have waited. I have had ideas I cared about and held them so tightly, trying to understand them completely before letting them out into the world. And here they stay with me, like little birdies whose wings have been clipped.

Then a Door Opened

Then an unexpected thing happened. Spoonflower offered me the chance to create a mural as part of their mural trial. I had been trying to make the tree village work as a wallpaper repeat, but it was not quite behaving the way I wanted it to. The trees and paths and little buildings seemed to want more room. They wanted to wander.

The mural gave them that room.

Suddenly, this odd little idea I had been carrying around had somewhere to go: a nine-by-twelve-foot wall where the village could spread out beneath a pale blue sky. There could be winding paths, ponds and bridges, apples by a shop door, birds in the trees, clouds overhead, and all the tiny things that do not need to announce themselves right away.

I painted the foliage and tree buildings by hand, then worked to build the larger world around them. There was a deadline, of course. There always seems to be one. But the heart of it still felt like following a trail through the woods: I could only see a little way ahead, and I kept taking the next step anyway.

The Story Keeps Opening

Somewhere in the making of it, I began to understand that I did not want to explain this village too much.

I do not know who lives in every tree. I have my own thoughts, but I don’t want to pin them down so tightly that no one else can enter.

Maybe it is a fairy village. Maybe it is a village of small animals. I don’t know. I just know the feeling of standing in the woods alone and not feeling alone—in a comforting way. Feeling a movement of energy that swirls through the leaves with the wind.

There are so many myths and fairy tales about forest sprites, fairies, Bigfoot, wood nymphs, and all sorts of other beings. I don’t know much about the origins of any of them, but what I do know is that the woods feel like they know something we don’t yet. Like the trees are watching over us—or at least observing.

My imagination can fill in these blanks, and it gives my soul a spark. I don’t want to take that away from someone else by proposing that I know the answer. To me, offering answers isn’t that engaging. What is interesting, though, is the What is it? Do you feel it too? What if?

I like that someone else might look at the mural and begin asking their own questions.

I have been thinking of it a little like improvisation. Someone offers a beginning, and the thing that keeps it alive is the next person saying, “Yes, and…”

Maybe my job is not to make a completed story, all finished with a bow at the end. I do want the composition to feel cared for and complete: the colors balanced, the details placed with intention, the whole thing pleasing to live beside. But perhaps the story can remain open.

Perhaps I can draw the door in the tree, and someone else can decide who lives behind it.

Making Before I Know

I wish I could say I am a master artist and always make art with great certainty. I don’t.

Usually, I am trying something because it has caught my attention and I cannot quite stop thinking about it. I am following a little thread without knowing whether it will become anything. There is uncertainty in it, and sometimes a fair amount of second-guessing too.

But I am beginning to wonder if curiosity is not an indulgence or a detour from the real work. Maybe it is often the doorway into it.

This mural did not begin as a fully formed mission or a brilliant plan. It began as a few trees that seemed to want to become something more. Then an opportunity came along, and I decided to see what would happen if I let them have a larger life.

I am glad I did.

Not because I think every unexplained idea will become a mural. But because following this one reminded me that there is still a spark in trying. In making something before you are certain. In noticing a small, strange thought and saying, all right, let’s see where this goes, and not needing to tie it all up in a grand conclusion that makes me look wise and accomplished.