In mid August, I submitted my name to create a work of art for Patti Digh's new book What I Wish For: Simple Wisdom for a Happy Life. After an overwhelming response, the editor randomly selected people to submit work, and I was lucky enough to be selected. Now there's no guarantee that my work will be selected, but the artwork above is my submission.

Patti had readers of her blog write essays for her older daughter giving her advice as she graduated from high school and transitioned into college. She then, selected many of the submitted essays to publish in book form, and then solicited artwork.

I received an essay a couple of weeks ago to illustrate, and it posed a real challenge. First, the essay contained some very literal imagery, and my art is not very literal. Second, the art could not use any legible text, and my art often uses text. After working on it for several days, I think that the resulting work reflects the essay pretty well. But I'm not going to share that.

What do you think the main theme of the essay was?

The work was created in a 9x12 Strathmore Mixed-Media Visual Journal.