In 2002, when I traveled to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, I saw how difficult it was for people to even get their hands on a slip of paper to write on. When I asked for three pages of newsprint paper for a workshop, they had to travel quite a distance and pay a lot of money. I began to think about the abundance and waste we have here in the United States, and to think about how to use the insides of envelopes for writing and art. Even the boxes that frozen meals come in, or butter boxes can be turned inside out to make art! My mother even used to turn boxes inside out to send packages in the mail, reusing everything she could. “Every box starts out flat,” she said.