Missouri Botanical Garden - Niki 2008

On Guide: n6 Sculpture: Bird Head Totem Location: Gladney Rose Garden My name is Marcelo Zitelli, I worked with Niki the last 16 years of her life and now I am a trustee of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. I met Niki in 1987 and I found a very open and charming person. Even if I was shy she talked to my like an equal, someone who was able to work directly with her. Right away we have a very good relationship and our relationship was based in our love of theatre. She wanted to be an actress when she was very young and I too was in theatre and Nikis work is always about telling a story. When I met her she was very upset about one sculpture that she wanted to do but the studio that she normally work with was unavailable. I told her I was willing to try and Niki say ok, you have a month to do the sculpture and I finished in 10 days, so Niki said to quit working on my other project. When began working together in the studio Niki needed to change the way she worked, which was to create a small model then sen