Although her parents encouraged her to become a teacher, a more stable career choice, Cheryl went to art school at Howard University. After that Cheryl decided to get married and settle down. Needing a second income, her husband requested that she put aside her art, and for the next twenty years appraised real estate. Right when her mother was about to retire, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On her mother’s deathbed, Cheryl gained a new insight. “She was babbling out of her mind: she wanted to go up in a hot-air balloon; she wanted to go to the Bahamas. Why wasn’t there any time for that before she couldn’t ever make that journey? So when she passed, that was it. I never appraised another thing.” Happily doing what she loves, today Cheryl is a multimedia artist and serves as an Artist in Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.