“I like to hear people say how beautiful it is because when I bead, I feel like I leave a little bit of myself in my work.”

A student of noted beadworker Samuel Thomas, Schmidt finds great satisfaction in both creative process and finished product. One of the youngest artists in the Contemporary Native American Art Collection, Schmidt employs techniques she discovered through her own investigations as well as Thomas' beadwork book, Ska-ni-kwat = We Are of One Mind: An International Beadwork Collaboration Project. This commitment to her art has earned Schmidt 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the Junior category at the Seneca Nation of Indians Fall Festival and 1st and 2nd place in the Junior category at the New York State Fair.