My name is Ashlyn Eggemann Swearengin. I'm a senior at Soledad High School. I started making art when I was very little, taking inspiration from my grandma. She is an artist, and I've been looking at her art for as long as I can remember.

I got inspiration for this piece from her. She often paints landscapes, and wanted to create a piece that invoked the same emotion her art gave me—a sense of wonder. I painted a combination of things that had that effect on me:  the northern lights for their amazing color and wavy enchantment, a blood moon for its rarity, and the white snow which reflects all these colors coming from the sky. The landscape explodes with shimmers as it glows under the moonlight.

I wanted to use a medium that was familiar in the sense that I had been looking at it all my life. My grandma's main medium is acrylic paint, and though I'm not very experienced with it, I wanted to follow her path and use the same. It's the fact that one person can create something so meaningful to another person that makes art so special. I want to continue my artist journey, and keep creating things that might just inspire someone else in the same way.