During the Dark Ages, Irish monks preserved knowledge in beautiful manuscripts. The Irish became renowned as story-tellers, poets, playwrights. Words are the base of this work – literally and thematically.

I wanted to depict the fantastic red eyes of the cicadah, and also indicate in a visual way the loud sound that it makes.

Inspired by a group challenge on the color red.

“Dragonfly Tea” takes place on a pond with lily pads and resting dragonflies.

Elms have been my favorite kind of tree since I was a teen-ager. We had a huge one in the backyard that I would climb and watch the world go by.