My name is Felix Sithiphone, I'm a Senior Consultant in BDO's Public Sector practice in the Greater Washington D.C. area. I studied accounting during college and focused on obtaining my CPA license after graduation but had a few setbacks that forced me to evaluate what I wanted and on what timeline. That's really where my interest in art formed. It was technically martial arts but an art form, nonetheless. I've trained for almost a decade now (the majority of the years in Kalamazoo, MI) and am a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (the midway point to black belt). Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, I was unable to practice and didn't feel comfortable training again but wanted to stay connected to the academies in the DC area that were still adjusting during lockdown and quarantine. So, I picked up photography as a hobby in hopes of sharing beautiful moments of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I never took any jiu-jitsu photos. I ended up taking photos of my dog mainly to practice my photography technique and on a lark one day, during a group Meetup in January 2021 during COVID-19's Delta variant, there was a particular bird (not a lark, but a painted bunting from the Florida region) that was spotted in the C&O (Chesapeake & Ohio) Canal Park in Potomac, MD. This outpouring of interest caused a chaotic traffic situation in the park and an hour delay. I was perplexed, annoyed, and frustrated that weekend and wondered what the fuss was about. Hordes of people were coming in and out of the park throughout the month to see a bird that had flown off of its migratory pattern and went opposite of its snowbird compatriots. This was a rare, once in a lifetime event. And I had to put my photography skills to the test. I went back the very next weekend, worried that the bunting would realize how cold it was and fly back home. The traffic wasn't as bad, only a half hour but the time re-allocated from traffic was spent searching and waiting for the guest of honor to appear. Rumors around the park circulated: "He's around Lock 17. " "No wait, I think he's bathing across the small creek." "We spotted him at Lock 19! It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." The original story -- goes into elaborate detail and involves me handling my dog, who I foolishly brought, trying to keep my hands and lens warm, and the mental strain of waiting for a tiny bird to appear out of the thick branches. But to save time, I saw the bird but didn't capture a good photo. To illustrate how terrible my first photo was; I called my family and told them about this rare bird and showed them my first photo and how happy I was. Incredulously, they couldn't see the bird and showed my first picture to their son, my 3-year-old nephew at the time. They showed him a picture through new state-of-the-art COVID-19 technology; screen sharing, and asked him, Leo, what's that? I watched as he contorted his face, tilted his head, strained his eyes before blurting out: "IT'S A FOREST!" Dejected from my nephew's harsh truth, I was determined to go back and photograph that fleeting bird again thanks to the photography tip my brother in-law shared, increasing my magnification range by 1.5x. If there ever was a time for "Rocky" montage, this would be it. It honestly felt like a montage of a National Geographic Wildlife photographer dealing with parking, trekking up and down the most popular posts, and irrationally, carrying a backpack full of camera gear and bringing my dog again. But I got the photo I wanted. It's my most prized piece of art and that's what you're bidding on. It's ironically titled "Close to Home" because: • What does art mean to you? Art reminds me of how grateful I am to have the connections in my life that allow me to feel at home. • Why do you enjoy creating? I see it as a challenge similar to jiu-jitsu where you go through a massive period of trial and effort, and you're finally ready for a small tip that helps you re-evaluate your entire approach. • How does art help you thrive? It technically doesn't but I think it's awesome that BDO is doing something as cool as this. Renowned New York artist Tom Sachs once described Art as the Most Important, useless medium we have. As a CPA tasked with billing and tracking tasks for arduous financial detail about the Federal Government, spending 3-weeks trying to photograph a bird was in fact, the most important and useless thing I've done because it made me feel close to home when the world felt very far away.