Last Easter we were at the Governor's Mansion in Williamsburg where we saw glorious flowering dogwood and apple trees... and awoke to see a fresh snowfall lingering on the tulip bed outside our room's window.

I was taken with this piece of ornament - (I'll call it a finial, as it tops off something) located in the rear garden of the mansion. I love the way the flowers appear as if they are carved, also am particularly taken with tone on tone. Where it's simply the relief that makes the designs pop. I try to take this inspirational element into my art, both in form & imagined execution.

The gardens also had numerous hedges and bushes that were trimmed to such exactness, that I would imagine it could be an execution in compulsion - making sure that no single element grew more than any other! Giant boxwoods carved meticulously into the shape of cylinders, hedges with sharp angles and down-turning curves, much like the wall beyond the finial. Very pretty...

Yesterday I had said that inspiration/art is out there for everyone - but you had to learn to see it.

This was a small outbuilding also at the Williamsburg settlement - With so many repeated elements... doesn't it make your heart skip a beat? I imagine that the fence in the foreground has little points on it also, but the angle of the shot didn't capture it.

Repetition strengthens a design - repetition emphasizes a statement - repetition gives cohesion... repetition unites a scene.