Because the fuzziest picture of Samantha was her parents’  favorite – that of Samantha lying on her belly in ballet class –  I needed some arresting way to take the focus off the poor quality of the image. In her custom photomontage portrait, I decided to give up on making Ballet Samantha as sharp as the surrounding objects (like the manicured bushes or the sign). Instead, I realized that if I placed her into a tondo of cherubim, the problem would be solved. The tondo is a classical porthole meant to reside high in the sky, so it places Samantha at the farthest distance from the viewer … at the same time turning her into a dreamy angel.