Last year we bought a tiny cabin in the high desert of central Oregon. We added onto it and it has become our home. Its in a pretty wild place, we live off grid, totally solar powered, wild animals abound.
The cabin came with a family of pack rats. I began researching them and am endlessly fascinated by how they go about their lives. They are like nature’s little folk artists, always searching for interesting items to bring back to their nest, constantly arranging things, adding new treasures. They also preserve their collections so they last for hundreds of years. Scientists in the west have studied some big pack rat nests and unearthed items nearly a century old. They have found plant species that no longer exist in the area but were collected and preserved by packrats many years ago! They create their own time capsules!
Many packrats make their nests at the base of old juniper trees. In my painting, the woman’s lower body is a juniper tree and then I put all the things of mine that I would put in my nest things I have that I collect and / or would not want to be without.