Envoy Commemorative Gift

The image was created as the commemorative gift given to envoys of the Joint Meeting of the Midwest US—Japan Association and the Japan—Midwest US Association. The Kansas Sunflower and the Japanese Koi were my inspiration for this piece. Both represent resilience and the ability to adapt to changing surroundings. Together, they create an image of two worlds coming together in a harmonious global partnership. I worked with an incredibly talented photographer to photograph the koi I had bought inside a black tub in the studio. For the next shot, I was stumped to find a suitable rake to rake the white sand into the proper zen garden sunflower petals, when he appeared holding cardboard which he had thought ahead to carve off one edge into a sawtooth pattern for me. Simple solution but genius! From there, I composited in Photoshop several shots into this one image.