How can a creature born of pure human imagination, fantasy, and myth dominate the hearts and minds of both Eastern and Western cultures? How this coming year will play out is anyone's guess, with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the unending conflict in the Middle East, the "third opium war", and the 2024 Presidential election here at home, the only certainty we may assume is that mankind has a whole lot hanging in the balance. As an especially auspicious symbol for the times and our chosen theme this year, join us in celebrating the eternal and powerful presence of a mythical creature no man has ever seen, thriving in the netherworld dimensions of our human hearts. Stories of dragons have prevailed in the folklore and oral traditions of both Eastern and Western cultures alike. Their forms generally follow a similar formula, reptilian, and serpentine-- diverging in their abilities such as flying, hoarding gold, and fire-breathing, (qualities unique only to the West). In Eastern lore, dragons became the guardians of the elements, keepers of the balance in nature, whose presence would grace us at pivitoal moments in our lives as benevolent benefactors' affecting the human condition for better or worse. The artisans of the Japanese Edo period were able to harvest the rich fields of human imagination sown from centuries of folklore surrounding the dragon's mythical prowess. They harvested the ripened fields of human imagination and translated into the imagery and artistry of a new "Floating World", and brought it as an artwork accessable to the masses for the first time in their printed artwork known as ukiyo-e.