Charley Harper loved ladybugs. Few creatures on this planet escaped his creative touch, but some in particular became recurring motifs that he returned to time and again—none more so than the little red beetle. Culturally, he enjoyed that they were good luck symbols around the world. Zoologically, he liked that they ate many other insects that pestered people. And, compositionally, a red circle just comes in handy sometimes. “They are attractive, and I can make many visual puns on them, so my family has used them on Christmas cards for years, Rudolf’s red nose, for example.” In his own home, he painted one four-foot-in-diameter ladybug as a mural. Ultimately, “They are the only bug that doesn’t bug people.”