"Symbolic Journey" Watercolor, pork hide, leather strips on paper "Symbolic Journey", is a collage of painted pork hides attached with leather strips to an entire simulated hide. Each painted section of hide has a mirrored duplicate that is arranged according to established conventions. Unpainted areas were always part of the design as well. Native American women were experts at hide preparation and it was her preference as to which animal skin she would use. Because of the buffalo's enormous power and endurance as well as it's role as food, buffalo hides were used for the containers in which food or clothing or medicine were kept. Using the buffalo hide in this manner symbolically enveloped the Plains Indians and their belongings in the numinous power of those who had allowed themselves to be sacrificed for the good of the people, protecting them from ill fortune (Coleman 3).

"Symbolic Foundations": Watercolor "Symbolic Foundations" depicts a design showing the two flaps of the parfleche meeting horizontally in the center. Each motif is duplicated according to artistic conventions. The designs are bold through the use of strong colors that contrast with the light colored natural hide left unpainted within the composition so that the parfleche can be seen at a distance. Usually five or six colors including the natural hide compose a painting on a parfleche: red, yellow, blue, and green. A brown-black color is used for outlining, to emphasize the border between positive and negative space and between adjacent colors. The flat planes of color are never shaded and never overlap.

"Moccasins": Watercolor, rusted metal "Moccasins" was conceived after finding a large steel sculpture whose surface skin was peeling and falling to the ground. As I moved the fragile pieces around on the blank paper, five images appeared in their original shapes. One piece looked like a head, another an arm with a fist, another, a humped back as though carrying a backpack, and two feet in moccasins. Abstract symbols painted around the metal pieces form a nomadic native. One half of the parfleche envelope is depicted.

22x30 "A Plains Woman": Watercolor on paper, feathers,beads, twine. The desire to make an actual parfleche propelled the idea for the painting, "A Plains Woman".The parfleche design was painted on an envelope shaped like the envelopes that were made from hide, with straight-cut ends and somewhat irregular sides. The long side-edges are folded inward till the center sections meet or overlap, forming a long rectangle. The top and bottom ends are folded toward the center where they meet forming the closure flaps. The flaps are then secured by ties (Wounded Hawk). Parfleches were suspended from each side of the saddle to evenly distribute weight and to create decorative symmetry of form (Torrence 63). The flowing hair of the native American woman beside her horse is adorned with down feathers and beads.