Blog / 2026 / Funny Little Circles, Again

In 2020, I painted these cheetahs for a supporter on Patreon who got in on the custom art deal there: $50 payments over the course of a year and you get a painting of an animal of your choosing—it’s all explained on this page.

In this case, the request was for a cheetah.

I decided to paint a mom with babies, because the patron has two human kittens of his own.

Little did I know that five years later I’d be painting another cheetah parent and her two cubs. This time it was for the First Zoo artwork, which is part of the 52 Weeks of Firsts public art project in Philadelphia.

To celebrate the first zoological garden in the United States, I painted a bunch of animals that represent firsts for the Philadelphia Zoo, like the first successful birth of cheetahs in captivity in 1956.

This happens a lot in my work and in my life, where things I do come back again in another form. I even made a video about it a few years ago.

I call these repetitions Funny Little Circles, and I appreciate them so much.

It’s like when someone says you remind them of someone else they know. It’s that person telling you that that they recognize a piece of you. Yes, it’s an incomplete picture, and of course it might lead to a misunderstanding if they assume you’re exactly like the person you remind them of. But it’s also an acknowledgement of our world’s complexity and of the ways we can find comfort in it.

For me, Funny Little Circles are a dance across time with myself.

Besides the first zoo, I also painted the first steamboat and the First Continental Congress. Learn about all three #1 sculptures that I painted for 52 Weeks of Firsts here.

Plan your art-and-history tour of Philadelphia with this interactive map.