At his point in the process, I had completed fifteen paintings for the library show, all interconnected and brimming with the teeming froth of suggested stories. I had completed the paintings that I thought had to exist in order for the collection to make sense (to me.) But I was haunted by one thing: some of the connections between the paintings were tenuous, even slight, but in most cases those weren’t the only connections. Shannon Hears the Music presented a unique problem, in that her only connection to the rest of the series was Morihar, and it was not a connection that would actually be visible to anyone viewing the show. But I was fast running out of time, and I had to be careful: if I started another painting now, I did so knowing that it would be the last painting for the show!

In her previous portrait, I was able to show a carefree side of Shannon that she doesn’t usually let the world see. What I decided to do now was bring Shannon back into a much simplified space (no infinite layers of gauzy grasses here!) and let her natural expression shine through. It all came together very quickly, because as soon as I envisioned the face on that thumb creature, I knew exactly how Shannon would react.