These painings were done in the fall of 2003 while I was studying at The Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy. I had an amazing studio in the center of the city and was inspired by the overwhelming history and beauty of Florence. One of my instructors had a cobblestone garden in his back yard complete with pet turtles. This is intially what inspired me to use the images of animals with the abstract landscapes I had been doing for about ten years prior to this time. The turtle images led to the use of the images of pigeons, which were everywhere in Florence, and eventually, to the use of the images of the animals from Africa.