While Jesse was recuperating from a very nasty back injury, he could not paint at his easel. But he wanted to keep working at his art. So he got out some of the ledger pages he had and came up with some images to put on them with his colored pencils. While his art is usually done in acrylic paint, the colored pencil is the more traditional art form.

Each series is based on  his explanation:“The longest of time ago, all creatures were brothers and sisters….all were people.  All could communicate with each other, work and play together, and were helpful to each other. I wanted to depict this old relationship. It’s characteristic of Cherokee stories to depict non-human creatures as huge….and I’ve shown that in these works.”