I had been asked by my friend, Christine Lilyquist, to come on an archeological dig in the Nile Delta as an artist, to draw artifacts. (Christine later became the Egyptian curator at the Metropolitan Museum.) I was very excited since I had been fascinated with ancient Egypt since I was a child.

But that year, 1968, for the first and last time, the Egyptian government withdrew permission for the dig, saying that the people involved were spies. So my plans were dashed and I did this watercolor as a fantasy trip.

Since my husband Hank and I had just begun our relationship, he has often speculated that if I had gone on that dig our lives might have changed dramatically; we might never have stayed together, married, had our children...