The Nature Box Series launched with my first bird-watching venture in the Missouri Ozarks. I became fascinated with spectrograms, the visual notations of the bird songs so I employed “fake” ones as decorative motifs. After I saw the Humpbacks and heard them sing when snorkeling in Maui, I created the “Humpback Whale” box. The Nature Box series continued with themes of birds, butterflies, trees, and rabbits. “Hare Moon” depicts the rabbit in the moon as observed by many cultures. "Duetting" illustrates the African, black-collared barbets that mate for life. They sing an antiphonal duet: one bird sings a note and the other answers with another note in syncopation and so on. When one dies, the other sings both parts of the duet. "Sumer is Icumen In" is from “The Cukoo,” a traditional English folk song. "Streams and Mountains" is from the Chinese poet, Hsu Pe, "Man's life does not allow unbroken ease, but to be able to be high up in the mountain this is leisure."

   

The flat sheet of paper is painted on both sides then cut and folded into a cube without use of adhesives. The images under the folded flaps stay secreted from view. The boxes fulfill my need to invent three-dimensional forms along with brushing the surfaces with paint. Materials are archival watercolor and paper.

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Arches Cold Press paper sheets range from 29 in. x 30 in. to 34 in. x 36 in. Folded boxes cubes from 5 in. to 7 in.