From the beginning of my career here at St. Mary's, I've considered myself foremost an illustrator. The great task of SMP was simply choosing the appropriate thing to illustrate, which should excite me such that I sufficiently push myself artistically for the sake of sharing that subject. It took months of searching, but I finally settled upon illustrating Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.

Despite the joy I experience in Mozart's music and in the fanciful plot- things I find well worth sharing- there was an underlying misogynistic message in the opera; it was something I found necessary to subvert if I wanted to pursue the task of illustration. The biggest change I made to this end was to transform the lead, Tamino, a prince, into a princess Tamina. In doing this, I hope to free the story from the disturbing ideologies of a bygone age, so that the magic and the music may reveal themselves to today's audience, replacing the opera's potential for malice with wonder instead.