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In this new Around the Mall blog feature, Smithsonian curators offer insight into their work as they prepare exhibitions and study the nation’s treasures. Today curator Amy Henderson from the National Portrait Gallery remembers when she visited with the late, great Katharine Hepburn.

Amy Henderson: I contacted Hepburn in the late 1980s to see if she would consider giving a portrait of herself to the National Portrait Gallery. She agreed to meet me at her Manhattan town house, which turned out to be filled with portraits and sculptures of her—she had always known artists, and seemed to enjoy posing for them.

She even picked up a paint brush herself occasionally, and her renditions of seagulls and beach scenes were scattered around the house. She also had done a number of graphite sketches of herself as Coco Chanel when she did the musical “Coco” on Broadway; one of these sketches will be in the exhibition.

The most remarkable thing I saw was her small bronze bust of Spencer Tracy: she kept it on a nightstand next to her bed, and once when she was showing me around, she handed it to me saying, “What do you think?” As I held it and turned it over, I said it was quite good, little knowing that at the 2004 Sotheby’s auction of Hepburn artifacts, this bust would sell (anonymously) for $316,000!

In 1991 her memoir, Me, became number one on the New York Times bestseller list. I visited her during this period and was summoned up to her bedroom, where she was surrounded by stacks of her book that her publisher had ordered her to sign. She hated to sign autographs and was acting as if it were torture—but she was actually quite pleased with herself, and delighted at the book’s number one status.

One thing that caught my eye in her room was how she had some of her signature red sweaters stretched out on the white chairs; for the exhibition, I was determined to have one of those sweaters, and—after digging around in the warehouse where her things are stored—one was ultimately found.

We kept up our conversations about her portraits for several years, and when I would visit she always offered coffee, cookies, and conversation. In her 80s, she was slightly shorter than in her 5-foot-8-inch days, and a bit pudgier (for which she blamed butter pecan ice cream). On the whole, she was largely as I expected her to be— feisty and independent—but with more of a rollicking sense of humor. She would happily roar away if something struck her as funny. Her energy remained palpable, and you could tell that this was the drive that had fueled her life. That and a supremely healthy ego that never quavered with age: as she told Dick Cavett in a 1973 television interview, “I am absolutely fascinating!”

That she was.

This Thursday, November 2, 2007, the National Portrait Gallery opens Henderson’s exhibition on Katharine Hepburn. Entitled, “Kate: A Centennial Celebration,” the show runs through to October 5, 2008.

(Photograph of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in “Woman of the Year,” MGM, 1942. Production still, Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California and the National Portrait Gallery.)

We found this cool creature lurking in one of the 19 Smithsonian museums. Anybody want to guess what it is, and where it hangs out?

Is it the inside of a nostril? A snail on steroids? A Goth kid’s necklace? Angelina Jolie before make-up?

We want to hear your ideas, serious or quirky! Check back soon and we’ll reveal its true identity.

(Photograph courtesy of Chip Clark)

At first glance, the canvas, rubber-soled slip-on may seem too simple to win a design contest. Some even argued it had been around the block. “This shoe is a plain copy from the typical shoe from Argentina, Uruguay and the south of Brazil. I don’t see the innovation in it,” read a heated posting on Cooper-Hewitt’s online comment board during the month-long voting period.

But, hold your judgment.

The museum’s contest asked what constitutes good design, and the public answered. Less is more—and a socially conscious business model is, apparently, what counts.

Former Amazing Race contestant Blake Mycoskie founded Toms Shoes, maker of the Argentine-style shoe, in 2006, with one premise in mind: for every shoe sold, one would be given to a child in need. The self-proclaimed Chief Shoe Giver made a trip to Argentina last year, distributing 10,000 shoes, and he’s set to give out 50,000-and-counting in a South Africa shoe drop this November.

The shoe eked out a win over the Floating Pool, which docked this past summer in the Hudson River at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Beach.

Sorry, New Yorkers. I guess feet are more important than beatin’ the heat.

(Blake Mycoskie, photograph by Paige Mycoskie, courtesy of TOMS Shoes)

Native American Douglas Chilton (or Yaa nak.ch, his Native name) started carving a canoe this fall, when a raven alighted near his workspace. Chilton, who belongs to the Raven clan of the Tlingit Indians, viewed the raven’s appearance as a blessing, especially because he and his colleague Rosita Worl from Sealaska Heritage Institute had already worked out a raven design for the canoe prow.

“I’ve heard about such coincidences happening to other people, but this is the first time it’s happened to me,” Chilton says. As word about the black-winged sentry spread, clan elders came to offer blessings and prayers, naming the raven “the watcher.” (There is no Tlingit word for guardian.) When Chilton and his family members work on the canoe, the raven takes up a post in a nearby tree and periodically squawks a call, as if to say, “Hurry up!”

Chilton’s canoe was commissioned for the new Ocean Hall, which will be opening next September at the National Museum of Natural History. He is at work now just outside the Sealaska in Juneau, Alaska (a contributor to the Ocean Hall). A Web cam is following Chilton’s daily progress, and from time to time, the raven can be seen there too. It has a slightly damaged wing, but it seems to be boldly patrolling the canoe and shooing away the curious.

Chilton remembers seeing a raven, which also had an injured wing, at a site 11 miles away when he was preparing the log for carving. He believes it’s the same bird and intends to honor the raven’s vigilance by incorporating its damaged wing into the canoe design. Though ravens are common in the Northwest, witnessing a myth in the making—online—that’s a rare sign of the times.

(Douglas Chilton and the raven, courtesy of Sealaska Heritage Institute)

Today kicks off the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Week. If you want to have a say in the matter of what constitutes good design, go vote for one of the 300 submissions, or nominate one yourself, in the second annual People’s Design Award.

You’ll have your pick of environmentally conscious designs, like green roofs, and British designer Anya Hindmarch’s trend-setting “I’m not a plastic bag” canvas totes. Check out engineering and technological feats like the Grand Canyon Skywalk, and the iPhone. There are throwbacks, there too, like the first Nintendo system and the once-trendy Adidas Sambas.

Voting is open until 6 p.m. E.S.T. October 16, and the winner will be announced 10 p.m. on October 18.

Last year’s winner was the Katrina Cottage, (above) designed by architect Marianne Cusato. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Cusato innovated this permanent, affordable (even attractive) house for hurricane victims.

National Design Week is an outgrowth of Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Awards, a program that, for the last eight years, has recognized architecture, communications, fashion, interior, landscape and product designers. Back in May, Cooper-Hewitt announced its 2007 National Design Award winners, one of whom was Chip Kidd. Look for our interview with him in our November issue.

(Courtesy of Cusato Cottages)