I'm a big fan of haiku, especially the nature aspect of it, which is a big part of the history of haiku and Japanese culture. I liked this poem because it followed in the footsteps of traditional haiku.
I wanted the poster to be influenced by traditional Japanese imagery, and make it look like a Japanese print, which uses a lot of simple colors and shapes. Ultimately the haiku is about a fish in water. It's a fish, it's in water, the water's dirty—so what else am I going to put in there? But the haiku's also about Onondaga Lake, and how, despite the lake being dirty, there's beauty. The fish are starting to come back, and that's really exciting. It's like finding a diamond in the rough. It's like finding the beauty in everything.
Onondaga's carp
are beautiful—eating junk,
breathing mud, living.
