My Mother, Ida Louise Mosedale Boyd loved tulips, I carved this piece for her Easter present, 1983. Also shown in this view are hand carvings of the Tai te Chu and calligraphy from the i Ching, the Book of Changes, a four thousand year old Taoist oracle, also a treble clef. The copper cap, cast copper and granite base was done in celebration of the 2025 vernal equinox, my eighty-fourth.

Ida Louise’s 1983 Easter present now has a cap and base, completed this vernal equinox, 42 years later. I just did the numbers. None of this was intentional. In 1983 when I did the carving, I was forty-two years of age. Forty-two years hence, the 2025 vernal equinox, I am eighty-three years of age.