Nature boy.

Nature Boy is connected by narrative to Morling's Butterfly Cabinet and Rummage and Gather: "My work is driven by my personal narrative and often pieces lead to other works. Nature Boy is all about teenage angst, really. He goes out with his rucksack [from Rummage and Gather] and collects bugs and nature. He is unsure of who he is in the world and starts collecting things to inform himself. He wants to pin down beauty, like in the old Victorian displays [like Butterfly Cabinet]. He wants to hold onto it but in the process he ends up killing it. Everything goes in the end ... Though Nature Boy is quite a small piece, I have made his rucksack life size so that I could look into it."--Information provided by the artist, 2017. See links herewith for descriptions of the two related works.
The porcelain pieces are fired without glaze. Details are drawn in black stain, before the second and final firing.
Produced in an edition of 10. Each of the 10 is unique, with variations in the selection of components.
Accompanied by a sheet bearing the artist's quick ink drawings of her Butterfly cabinet (or Freedom Box), Nature boy, and Rummage and gather, signed and dated (17/2/16).
Selected exhibitions: "A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions" (Yale Center for British Art, June 1, 2017 - August 13, 2017).
Restricted fragile material. Use requires permission of the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Restricted fragile material. Use requires permission of the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. 22789903420008651
The work includes sculpted porcelain components arranged in the two interior compartments of a nineteenth-century wooden box. The titular Nature Boy sits in the compartment at right, legs dangling beyond the lower edge of the box. He holds a cup containing pins (made of porcelain) for mounting natural specimens. He is surrounded by such specimens, including a turtle, the skulls of two birds, six insects (including butterflies), and a botanical specimen. Affixed in the box on the left side is a reproduction of the beginning of Chapter XX, "The Cockroach," in J.B. Farmer's The book of nature study (London: Caxton Publishing Co., 1908).