In 1989 my 7th grade class took a trip to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It was already one of my favorite places to visit and I got to work. I used two rolls of film to photograph almost every specimen on display. My mom had them printed out at the drug store so that I could tape them all around my desk. They accompanied the Xerox copies of zoological and botanical plates from our old encyclopedias. I would sketch them incessantly, until I knew every joint, every fold,… more