In the view from her studio window, white sails were moving in a regular pattern on San Francisco Bay. That a regatta was in progress on Monday was only somewhat surprising. It was mid-June, 1989, long past Opening Day.
Inside her studio, Art Institute Adjunct Professor Caydance O'Brien was studying an artist-altered music box. Painted around the base of this object were miniature scenes. The whole might have been created in the 1950's, perhaps for a wealthy tourist, but because a collector had purchased it at the San Francisco Art Institute Annual Valentines Day Exhibition, it was purportedly a contemporary Bay Area artist-made object.
Visible through a glass case on the top of this enchanting object, was a castle or a monastery nestled in snow covered mountains. It was not what remained of the Abbey of Saint Gall in Switzerland, nor was it the Great St Bernard Hospice in the Pennine Alps (in Switzerland, but close to the Italian border), both of which she had once visited in search of artist book-like medieval manuscripts.