This box is part of the Lovely and Amazing series. It is wrapped on the inside with surface treated laser print copies from Ruth’s scrapbook collection of handwritten poetry. The outside is wrapped with laser print copies of scans from a text and images about reptiles that have been tinted and coated with pigmented wax. Inside the box is a . There is a preserved snake specimen and processed snake skin on the back wall, snake shed remnants in a test tub, a construction of snake sheds and rattlesnake vertebrae on a brass rod and a small selection of snake ribs and vertebrae mounted in a wood box behind a magnifying lense. Propped at the bottom of the box is an inkjet reprint of black and white photograph of Ruth Wheeler with a snake in her mouth. Glazed with cast acrylic on front surface.

Lovely and Amazing, begun in 2006, is an ongoing series celebrating the life of Ruth Wheeler, beloved biology teacher, naturalist, youth advocate and feminist who lived and worked in north Denver for 70 years. Ruth found the natural world a place of endless delight and shared her enthusiasm with many, including myself, her great-niece. She left behind a collection of biological specimens, notes and photographs which I have incorporated into a series of three-dimensional collages, boxes and book works.

Materials:

Paper, laserprint, pigmented wax, birch plywoood, brass, preserved skinned snake, snake skin sheds, Diamondback snake ribs and vertabrae, glass lens, museum board, aluminum, (hardwood – specific species unknown), tempered hardboard, pine, acrylic and oil base paints, solid ink color print, mica, brass wire.