I started the sketches for this painting by trying to work out a pentagonal tiling. Though I couldn't find one, when I made 5 pointed stars inside each pentagon, and used two different sizes of pentagon, an interesting pattern emerged, with all of the stars one colour and the trapezoidal and trainagular spaces between the stars the other colour.

Once I'd finished sketching the stars, stripes (the simplest perfect tiling) seemed like the obvious companion, and red, white and blue the only possible colors I could use. I painted this in June, and completed it a few days before July 4th. I think of the field of stars "emerging" out of the stripes.