Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos

My name is Rick Kowal, and my piece is titled "Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos," which means "Raise crows, and they'll pick out your eyes." It is a 12-by-12 round image with a bright, saturated red background and a black crow holding a severed eyeball in its beak. The optic nerve, still attached to the eye, swings away from the crow. The piece was done in acrylic, mostly with an airbrush, and the detail work was finished with a synthetic brush. I chose this imagery because the saying has multiple meanings. It can be interpreted as "Don't bite the hand that feeds you," or even "Live by the sword, die by the sword." I initially wanted the background to be a solar eclipse with the crow in the shadow of the eclipse, but then I thought of an eye staring back from the round panel. While searching for reference photos of crows, I came across a picture of a crow eating an eye, and a further search led me to the idiom. The idiom made me reflect on things inside of me and on events that have happened in my life, and it all came together to inspire this piece. Thank you.