While working as a display artist in retail, I won first place in an international display competition on Men’s rain hats, I used raindrop cutouts to represent water in my display. At the time a co-worker had a bitter breakup with her boy friend, and was wearing sunglasses to hide her red and swollen eyes, I sketched her face on one of the scrap cutouts, which in turn inspired me to paint a sad picture of a crying girl, wearing sunglasses in the shape of a teardrop. Black pepper was mixed in the paint to give it texture. All this became Pepper Tears.