I was always busy doing something, being an only child.

Charles Burchfield would look at what you were working on and not say anything for several minutes. Then he would very sensitively respond - "Well, have you thought about?" or "Might you consider?" I respected that so much because I thought he was so sensitive to my work, and didn't want to offend me, but in the right way to encourage me.

There was a certain amount of discipline, I think; my parents wanted to be sure that I was not just sitting around doing nothing.

I graduated in June 1948 and then went in the fall to the art school. I stayed with my cousins on Seventeenth Street in the beginning, and later had my own apartment very near there and was able to walk to the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue. The school had a faculty of local artists - Jeanette and Robert Blair, James Vullo who were well known in the area. It was a school that I think thrived on returning GIs, as many schools did at that time. It was a very informal program - but it was professional.

My parents never prevented me from doing anything, but they didn't have the knowledge of the arts that Mrs. Ranger had.

Even today, the bigger the city, the better. That's why I live in New York.

In thinking back, not having any experience in any other elementary school, there may have been an advantage of being with different age groups to benefit from what they were learning in a more advanced capacity. With a small group like that, there was a lot of one-to-one teaching.