Support: The work is executed on a laminated, composite cardboard panel. Small indentations at the board edges indicate the painting was likely previously installed in a frame using nails. Small bits of the paper structure are easily dislodged.

Ground or Support Preparation: The priming on the recto appears to be basic lead carbonate in oil, as identified using XRF at 15 kV, 28.8 μA, and 40 kV, 3.8 μA, with full vacuum. There is a coating of titanium dioxide white magna color on the verso, applied in 1975 at the request of the artist. Below this coating, red, green, grey, and blue paint, likely oil-based, can be seen, and these paints have a tendency to shed small bits of paint. The priming appears to have been applied by the artist and is a white ground of lead carbonate in oil. The priming appears generally secure and stable and can be seen intermittently on the board edges. Flaking of the paper from the support and small colored paint bits from under the white coating on the verso tend to easily flake, while some bits appear to be stuck to the verso surface. The white acrylic coating has flaked, leaving the colored paints exposed at the edges.

Design Layers: Paints are generally thinly applied in single and double layers as creams and liquids, executing transitions in value or hue by painting wet–abutting dry. The artist has raised ridges of paint with her brushwork at the edges of many forms. Background whites were smoothed by the artist using a palette knife or a similar tool. Graphite underdrawing is occasionally visible at the edges of forms in both holidays between and under paint application. Small bumps/micro-protrusions are present (primarily in green or variations of green) on the surface and indicate the presence of soaps. Paints have been preliminarily characterized using X-ray fluorescence as basic lead carbonate and zinc oxide whites, bone black, burnt umber, red ochre, yellow ochre, and viridian chrome green, all in drying oil.

Surface Coating: A yellowed and lightly soiled synthetic resin varnish, thickly brush-applied, is present overall. Treatment documentation suggests that the work was last varnished in 1975 using Acryloid B-67 iso- and n-butyl methacrylate copolymer. Localized consolidation of the fragmented panel edges was also executed at this time, as was the removal and overpainting of a painting on the verso, at the request of the artist.

Framing, Backing, and Hanging Hardware: The work is installed in a reproduction Georgia O'Keeffe III "clam shell" profile metal leaf, environmentally controlled frame with a gasketed secondary backing basswood strainer and gasketed Optium glazing.

With the exception of some paint flake loss at the edges of the support (and paints on the verso as noted above in the section on ground/support preparation), all paints appear secure and stable. The support is in good plane overall. There are numerous scattered holidays in the paint layer as a result of the artist's compositional technique. These should not be mistaken for losses. There is a shallow, linear abrasion in the varnish across the lower left of the horseshoe, near the tip of the feather (near the black edge), and at isolated areas on the top and bottom edges. A loss at the mid-left edge of the support has resulted in a small associated crack in the paint at the left edge. Some of the white areas that the artist smoothed with a palette knife or similar suggest a darker color below.

There are isolated accretions and inclusions. Basic lead carbonate micro-protrusion grains and micro-blisters (2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2) have begun to appear, primarily in areas (lower part of painting) containing green paint, but these are very difficult to see, even in strong raking light.