I took a "field trip" through the slums of Peoria (Illnois) - "down the hill" as we said at my university. In addition to seeing things that helped devop my "wabi-sabi" aesthetic, I found a lovely piece of discarded wood in the middle of a street. I took back to campus with me and began carving verious shapes into it. I was going off of the interesting wood grain, but was also reflecting on the "boxed in" nature of poverty and ghettos - hence the title.