A seasonal specialty best collected after rain.

Following a strong monsoon, Tucson washes, yards, and low places offered Sonoran Packing Company a material in remarkable abundance: fresh desert mud.

The company developed a small seasonal line around the substance, packing it while still glossy and richly saturated. Quality control became complicated when Sonoran Desert toads began appearing in the product with some regularity.

Rather than remove them, the company concluded that a resident toad was proof the mud had been collected under authentic monsoon conditions.

Packed fresh after the storm.

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The Sonoran Packing Company was established in Tucson in 1932 with an ambitious purpose: to preserve the Sonoran Desert itself for convenient household use. The company eventually disappeared, but a small cache of its products recently resurfaced .

After returning to Tucson in 2026, I was thrilled to “discover” this long-lost enterprise. I enjoyed exploring the motif of sardine cans as part of my artwork while living in Monterey, and the fictional company gave this format a new reason to exist. Instead of packing the coast into cans, these paintings preserve the impossible abundance of the Sonoran Desert: heat, storms, flowers, stars, nectar, wildlife, and whatever else the company might have considered suitable for household use. The result connects two chapters of my work - Monterey’s real sardine-packing history and Tucson’s entirely invented one.

This original miniature painting was created with gouache paint on 140 lb. Legion hot pressed Stonehenge Black watercolor paper and measures 3x2”. It comes in a signed mat and frame that bring the overall size of the piece to 4.75x3.75”. It ships free. It will be framed in a gold tone frame as pictured; black frame available upon request (simply reply to the email confirmation of your purchase to make the request). For an additional charge, I can upgrade the framing to an 8×8’ natural wood frame and 8-ply white mat.

Colors of original painting may be slightly different than what you see on your monitor screen. Artist signature, year of creation, and artwork title are included on back of painting. Copyrights remain with artist.