Tabula Rasa - This piece has gotten a lot of good responses. The phrase “tabula rasa” is Latin for “blank slate”. It carries the idea that what happens to us writes upon us who we are. Here the parents of a child write who that child will be.

The pearls and tie show the male and female stereotypes of parents, and there is a hand holding the child, allowing this to happen. Cattails pour down, signifying my father and Louisiana to me, and palm trees grow up, meaning my mother and California. A fence and wall hide what will happen next, and ink drips, many experiences lost and forgotten. The cross behind the child is a Biblical allusion to the sacrifice made, either by the parents to write the correct things, or by the child who is a scrap paper written badly upon.