This month, as spring continues to unfold, we’ve dared to take a break from the dreary news of the world and to steal a moment in which to fashion some daisy chains, feed the birds, plant some seeds for a small flower or vegetable garden, skip stones across a pond, or just sit outside and soak up the sunshine. We’ve also reached out to a diverse group of artists who have long had nature and its forces on their minds when developing their ideas and creating their work.

One of them is the painter Alma Realm, whose pictures are characterized by bold palettes and broad, energetic, decisive brush strokes. Realm lives and works in northern Minnesota, where she is tapped into the rhythms of the land and the weather, and from where she sent us a succinct note regarding this month’s theme. “The force of nature that gathers most of my attention is the imagination itself and all of its workings,” she advised.

The artist’s note was short and sweet. Most of what she has to say can be found in her paintings, which deliver messages, often inspired by nature’s forces or the natural environment, that may feel quite direct and or that sometimes seem more mysteriously ambiguous. Here is a small selection of her works. See more on Realm’s Instagram account (@almarealm).