This body of work started out simply as an experimentation with a medium. I was interested in simplifying the subject matter in order to concentrate on allowing ink to find its own form and shape. The bald eagle is a motif that I have rendered often, but more recently I saw, in a flash while driving home from work here in my home state of rural Maine, an eagle carved from wood installed as an exterior house ornament. In my mind I saw it as having been constructed as a carved board, stained or painted dark brown or black, which then had a white head and tail attached, since the spread wings appeared, from my glance, as a very horizontal rectangular form. This folksy simplicity gave me a sudden inspiration to approach the bald eagle motif as a swipe of a bamboo brush loaded with black sumi ink...maybe lay down a broad wash of super light ink first so that the white head and tail would show better. I was hoping that this work might help me decompress a bit after an intense period of following the near daily political upheavals occurring in the U.S.. The bald eagle, while clearly a loaded political symbol, could also be what it really just is, a wild creature. Though I was unable to allow myself to go full nature, my degree of restraint enabled me to experience the medium of ink and rice paper in a way that allowed its properties to inform the work in a strong way.