Veronica Nunez-Ramos is an artist. Her canvasses are tiny and come in different shapes and sizes. Today's canvasses belong to Michaeline Shuman, a Peace Corps volunteer who props her feet up on a small stool. Her ten toenails await Ramos' talented touch.

Ramos,16, taught herself to paint designs on fingernails and toenails at the age of 12. She lives in a three-room shack made of wood and corrugated scrap metal with her family in a section of Santa Cruz known as the "squatters village." A 1950s refrigerator door provides access in and out of the back of the home.

Ramos saves her profits from nail painting in the hopes of one day attending college.

--Debi Springer