The idea for Passed On started with an illustration of two birthday candles with wax bodies and flame heads, holding hands and running. I keep an art board filled with random ideas of turning ordinary objects into unexpected images, and this was one I kept coming back to. I couldn’t stop wondering who they were, and what they were running from or toward.

Around that time, I visited my grandfather, who was living with dementia. Being far away, I hadn’t seen him in a while, and I didn’t know that visit would be our last. He was holding my newborn niece on his lap, and even though he was confused by the details around him, he had tears of joy in his eyes. In that moment, none of that mattered. We were together.

After he passed away, I started talking with my family about his life and hearing stories about who he was before I knew him. I began to see a pattern. The grandfather I knew was funny and lighthearted, but he hadn’t always been that way. Over time, he had softened.

That’s when I started seeing him in the candle character. I wondered how I could turn his life into a story about aging, what we inherit, and what we choose to change. A simple image of two candles became a way to honor his life and explore what gets passed on from one generation to the next.