"Beautiful Animals" is an exploration of the tension between existential insignificance and the profound beauty of life’s simple moments. The piece features a cow, chosen as the embodiment of the purest form of animal, gazing upwards, contemplating its own existence. This animal is both a symbol of the mundane and a creature caught in the vastness of the universe, illustrating the dual nature of our own experiences—where small, fleeting joys like a good breakfast or a kiss from someone sweet coexist with the overwhelming sense of life’s inherent insignificance. The print itself was created through a four-layer linoleum reduction, each with hand-mixed colors. The piece is further enriched with a poem I wrote in 2023, hand-set in a combination of multiple wood typefaces and three sizes of Bernhard Gothic Medium metal type from Montana State’s historic collection.