I began to look at other leaves, noticing their color. It was Fall and lots of exciting colors were around. I also noticed while looking at the leaves on the trees how much their colors looked like the colors of cast glass. The second leaf cast was a bright yellow ginko, and then as I visited the Berkshires and Boston soon after I noticed the colorful Fall folliage at its most vibrant. By that time I was hooked and have had many great experiences learning about leaves, trees, geography, our environment and our diverse cultural differences. By December 2001 I began dating the leaves and locating where they came from. At that time I was not familiar enough with trees to identify each leaf but am learning now.

I like to travel and have family in both the U.S. and abroad. While teaching a class in a school in Istanbul, Turkey during the Summer of 2002, I was able to gather some interesting leaves from historic places in Turkey and cast them in glass at the school. The large brown Sycamore was cast in Turkey. One of my daughters lives in Yerevan, Armenia. I visited there in December 2002. Knowing in advance that I would not be allowed to bring real leaves back with me, I packed in my already overcrowded baggage a bag of plaster, a bag of clay, and a saucepan of wax. In my daughter's kitchen I was able to cast about five leaves in wax to bring home. One of them is the large green maple in the bed of leaves.

To date I have gathered all of the leaves myself, but friends are now beginning to find leaves for me and this will add another dimension to the project. I will now identify the donors as well as the date found and locations.