"I emulated the womens' stitchery of those days to form the background of the painting. Her mother and father and sisters as I imagined them and the New England town of Concord. She manages to transport the reader directly into the domestic lives of the family she created in Little Women. Yet at the same time... she nursed wounded soldiers during the Civil War. She fought for the right for woman to vote. Those images are also in the background. and I think that spirit pervades her works. We now are accustomed to her writing, but the realism, the details were/are quite extraordinary."