Sometimes, the best inspiration doesn’t come from a gallery wall or a perfectly curated Pinterest board — it comes from a rotting tree stump behind a building.

I snapped the second photo while walking across a patch of grass I’ve passed dozens of times before. That day, I looked— really looked — and saw these incredible bracket fungi blooming like flames. The orange edges, the deep brown grooves, the hypnotic layers… it stopped me in my tracks. It was raw, unintentional beauty. No one arranged it. No one designed it. And yet, it was perfect.

The first image? That’s a piece I created weeks before. Pen on paper, with hours of careful line work and instinctive spirals. I didn’t reference anything when I made it — I was just following a feeling, trying to give shape to some internal rhythm.

And now I can’t unsee the connection.

The lines. The texture. The organic forms that feel like movement frozen in time. One is deliberate, the other wild. One hangs on a wall, the other clings to a stump. But both remind me that we’re always connected to the natural world — even when we think we’re just doodling.

Maybe I was drawing fungus before I ever noticed it. Or maybe nature is just always one step ahead of me.

Either way, I’m paying attention now.