Raising Swallows

A single swallow with an iridescent teal-blue head and back, ochre-gold wings and tail, and a white throat patch rests low in a densely woven nest of straw and twigs, its dark eye and beak turned toward three pale cream eggs beside it. Grey mottled feathers are tucked into the nest material at center, and the entire composition is framed by a dense, textured border of interlaced golden-brown grasses rendered in fine linear detail. "Raising Swallows," a reductive linocut relief print by Monique Wales, 2016.