(Alva)
(Alva's) original collection in the Archive spans eight years, 1976-1985, ages 5 to 13. The full collection contains 952 items, which are reproduced on microfiche in the Reference Edition. The collection stands out for (Alva's) attention to composition. She uses boundaries, framing, corner treatments, and lines to divide the space of a page. Pattern, repetition, symmetry, and layering appear across the collection and within individual pieces. Lines, bands, panels, and columns recur, with a preference for the vertical, but also intersecting lines and bands. (Alva) uses a variety of media, including chalk, cray-pas, pencil, crayon, colored pencil, watercolor, tempera, printing, rubbings, marbling, and collage, and she mixes media within a piece of work. Consistent motifs include natural and outdoor scenes, animals (often in groups), hills, suns, water, houses with trees and flowers, bursts of color, and patterned or geometric forms. Vivid color permeates the visual collection. Much of (Alva's) written work deals with relationship, with strong feeling at the core. The strength of feeling is contained by a style that is structured and attentive to detail and by a straightforward tone. Animals (especially horses and mice) in her written work experience changes of relationship and feeling. Relationships among people are explored as well, and in her later work values of equality and justice come to the fore.