This is one of a pair of paintings done as an experiment to see how readily my acrylic painting style would work in the egg tempera medium. Both paintings are compositions using the same symbolic elements: an egg, an ammonite fossil, and the leaf of a ginkgo tree.

In my work, the ammonite fossils are symbolic of extinction while the Ginkgo is a symbol of survival and endurance against all odds. In these paintings, they are used in symbolic opposition, with life—symbolized by the egg—poised between. It was a private joke on my part to make an egg the central object in my first-ever egg tempera painting.