Jack Sturtzer, one of my cousins, had gone to art school and suggested that I might be interested in a private school called the Art Institute of Buffalo, and in fact that is what happened. So upon graduation in 1948, I then went to stay with my cousins on Seventeenth Street and enrolled in the program at the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue.

Fortunately, I had cousins who lived in Buffalo and would often go to visit them, which I loved to do because I liked Buffalo as it was a big city. Even today, the bigger the city, the better.

When life closes a door, God opens a window.

In a social studies class I did a paper on the history of Attica, which ended up being a little book that I created.

Many people look but they do not see.

Upon graduation, in the yearbook I was voted "Most likely to succeed." which I know was credited to my artistic achievements.

I was there [in school] the full time with one teacher, and the student body was never more than 10 or 12 students of all ages.