Maybe that's what I've based my career on: getting up earlier than everyone else so I get an extra couple of hours.

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.

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.

At school there were some programs in music. I did take piano lessons, and we had a piano at home. I got very interested in that.

I know that I was conscious of all the aspects of the war, having had cousins who were in the army, who would send me notes and memorabilia. I began to collect things that they would send me.

Being born in '31 was during the Depression and in my earlier youth World War II took place - so it was not the best of times, and yet I don't recall ever having experiences that were a burden.

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