For the young Mary Snowden living in New York City, part of the positive potential of sculpture was nurtured through family friends Salvador Dali, Paul Manship, and Isamu Noguchi; all of whom encouraged M.L. Snowden at an early age to pursue her love of art.

As Snowden recalls, "actually I felt Dali liked children. When he was showing my mother creative furniture he had designed, he made me take my chewing gum out of my mouth. He told me to take my wet gum in my fingers and had me roll a little worm which was a snake and a ball which was an apple. He said all natural forms are based on these two little shapes, whether theyre stretched, melted into other things, or are left alone. He told me my arm was a snake and my head was an appl...