Over the past five months, I began a project that still remains to be fully realized. The final product of the project will be an adaptation of Mozart's last opera, The Magic Flute, into an illustrated book. My attention these last months was given to establishing a sound foundation from which to continue the project, which involved writing the story and developing its visual design. The book will feature, in reproduction, illustrations painted in watercolor, a medium which best evokes the fluidity and physical transparency of music, lending a visual sound to a medium that is otherwise silent. The book will also contain a complete prose text of The Magic Flute, which I have re-written and altered from the original opera.

This necessity for me to change the plot of The Magic Flute stemmed from my dissatisfaction with the Freemasonic ideals displayed in the original, such as ideals of uncompromising white male superiority. This taps into my core beliefs on the role of telling stories, and of happy endings: Stories are never pure fantasy, nor pure entertainment. Stories allow us to design worlds in which wrongs are corrected and virtues are revered and rewarded. As a storyteller, my responsibility is to establish concepts of normal, of good, and of evil that serve our contemporary, real world. That is because stories not only teach us a model of right and wrong, but also teach us that we have the power to decide right and wrong.

I want my stories to remind the audience that another world can exist other than the one we might accept as permanent. You, the reader, have the power to shape this world we share. My story is a plea that you will help me to make it more righteous.

This exhibition was a glimpse into a project still at hand. It consisted of production art at various levels, including colored studies for scenes, completed watercolor illustrations, and a preliminary book featuring the first act of the opera in mock-up form.