Inside The Mind of The Artist:
My father painted when I was younger. He was not really an artist. I think he had artistic ability and fancied himself as an artist. He used to try to copy pictures that he liked by using a projector to draw the picture onto his canvas. He seemed to like to paint, although I think he was basically locked into a small space in his mind and frustrated. When he got out of the service during world war II, he worked in the family Dry Cleaning business. I don’t know what he would have done if he had a different choice. I showed art talent as early as 1st grade. I did not like to be singled out and given special projects. This flaw in my personality seriously stunted my growth as a person and as an artist. I ran away from home to live with my father when I was 9, and although he didn't really want me there, neither did my mother. She was frustrated with her life and her personal project of eternal vanity, and found that just sending me away was an easy disposal of one of her problems. It also hurt and confused her that I did not seem to respond to cruel punishment. Years later I saw the movie "Mommy Dearest" and this was perhaps the most vivid dejavu I had of my childhood. Now this is not a complaint about life, or about the past, just a setting for what became the ways that I tried to relate to the world, through art. I first tried to paint "for real" when I was about 10. I did paint by numbers and when I got bored with that I used to create landscapes like my father with the leftover paint. My father assured me that I was not an artist but was only emulating art. I think this was a good assessment for himself at the time. It is funny how people see others through themselves. It is also funny how adults try to pass the blame for their shortcomings onto their offspring. Anyway, later that year I won 4th place in a small art competition for a rather moody landscape with a bridge and water in it. It seems that I was doing more at the time than just laying down color and design, and this was beyond my comprehension at the time. There were many adults in this competition and it was a surprise. With that in mind, the mind of a child, because I don't think I have ever left that state for fear of the tortures of the adult world, I would like to present to you some of the moments of my art life that seemed to make sense.
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