I felt that the haiku was great. It has a very patriotic feel, as well as a great location. The war memorial statues at Clinton Square fall right into the genre of work that I normally enjoy working on.

My personal work that I enjoy is cityscape paintings of European cities like Venice, Rome and Tuscany. This haiku gave me the opportunity to paint a landscape and I was able to include a human figure, which gave it a narrative quality.

As far as the figure is concerned, I felt that the haiku was explaining a man paying his respect to the soldier who fought in the war. I also portrayed one of the “fallen soldiers” returning the respect with a salute in the cast shadow of the figure.