Man versus Nature started as a simple collage with magazine and book scraps. I attended a collage workshop with my daughter, where we were given a bag of random scraps and challenged to create a few collage pieces from what was in the bag. The background of this piece was one of the collages that I created that day. I brought it home and it hung out on my studio desk for a few weeks until I noticed this box lying around. When I noticed the collage fit perfectly in the box, I decided to explore ways to create a larger piece from it. A few months before, on a day trip to my son's college, while filling my car with gasoline, I noticed this little broken toy man on the ground. I picked up this "true found object" and shoved it in my pocket. This little guy seemed like a natural in my new project about Man versus Nature. A scrap of black sandpaper underneath him offers the perfect surface for a chalk outline. Behind the collage is a vintage folding carpentry ruler. On the sliding front lid is a piece of burned driftwood, retrieved by my son, from deserted fire ring in Myrtle Beach. I think the found objects, seen in their ruined and shabby state, further the story that was started by a simple collage completed at an afternoon workshop.