This artwork was created in the Chinese Year of the Pig. I couldn't resist bringing the subject matter back home to the southwest. The year's element was brown earth, and feminine - low flatland, fertile and wet. Pig is also of water, and water brings wealth and luck, but too much creates a danger of flooding. Our javalina (javalinas are not true pigs - scientifically they are a sister taxa to the beasts of the Old World) finds her food in arroyos - the dry washes of the desert where rains rip scars in the landscape and cultivates an oasis of green life. Rains have passed recently: the selaginella - also known as the resurrection plant for its usual tendency to curl into dry ball - is opened fully, and the sand verbena and the ocotillo are in bloom.