So I may or may not have ever mentioned this here at the lair, but I have a HUGE fangirl crush on Keith Birdsong. Not familiar with the name? That’s all right. I bet, if you’re a geek like me, you’re familiar with his work. He’s an extraordinarily talented artist who has done work for almost every major fandom imaginable, including my all-time favorite, Star Trek. In fact, if you ever picked up a TNG or DS9 novel back in those shows’ heydays, more likely than not you were looking at a Birdsong original on the cover. I happily confess that, on several occasions, I bought a novel based solely on the fact that I thought his cover art was gorgeous.

Imagine my delight, then, when I realized that he had done a fantastic piece for Creation Entertainment’s annual Xena convention back in 2007. I immediately fell in love with this one: Not only is it Birdsong’s recognizable style giving life to familiar scenes of Xena and Gabrielle (and Argo, too!), but it’s done on a beautiful abstract backdrop painted by Birdsong as well. Top it all off with the fact that Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor signed each of the limited-release prints of this artwork and you’ve just pushed the geekery over the breaking point for me.

But how could I make this even more special?

Look at the bottom left of the picture and you’ll get the answer to that question (sorry for the lack of detail and glass reflection in this photo, but I kind of wanted to make sure that no one could copy this image). See, my Mirror Universe self knows people, including the amazing Keith Birdsong. My Mirror Universe self rocks…but Keith rocks way more. He very graciously signed this print for me, and I can’t even begin to express how awesome he is for doing so. All I have to do is look at his signature and I’m suddenly 15 again, standing in the aisle of the Crown Books Superstore and looking for the newest TNG book to bear a Birdsong original.

If you’d like to see more of Keith’s artwork, you can visit his online gallery or check out some of his more recent work, sold through Lightspeed Fine Art.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some more squeeing to do…