As an intern at the Smithsonian, my primary job was hospitality. I ran the front desk and walked the exhibits several times a day to refill the pamphlets and flyers. On quiet days, I borrowed books from the research library and copied images of tribal art into my sketchbook. I particularly liked the work from the Northwest Coast tribes, those alleged cannibals. Funny, later I filled the last few pages with drawings I did looking at Basquiat, and only I can tell the different influences. 

But my favorite thing were the craft classes; it would be me and a bunch of kids playing around, and I was always the most excited. This angel was done during the cornhusk doll lesson, it's three times bigger than the traditional clothes pin size and I would have made it a friend but I didn't want to be greedy. Very fragile, especially the wings, it changed my take on the sculpture I'd been doing, which had been more about the painted surface than the solid form.