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STUDENT: I'm curious as to why you decided to be--to choose scu lpture [[sculpture]] as your means of expression. What affinity did you feel for it in your early years?

LIPCHITZ: Well, I didn't choose. I didn't choose. As I was a child, I was making things with my hands because I had the itch which I had to satisfy, that's so. And this itch is always with me, constantly. I have this itch. When I started to make sculpture I never saw any sculpture. I have seen toys and I saw that I am making toys. I was making them for-- beautiful things--for example, I was giving them to my little girl friends, so that they should be nice with me. I was--at that time I was working for love--now I am selling my sculpture.

STUDENT: At any time during this period...well, earlier while you were a student,...in what way did you support yourself financially?

LIPCHITZ: Well, I have to tell you that: I am born to a wealthy family, and I was the first son in a Jewish family, which is something very important, always. I was very spoiled all my life. My father didn't want me to make sculpture because he had factories and he wanted me to be an engineer and to help him in his business. My mother was a very extraordinary woman, elegant and sensitive and very religious, so that probably played a great role, because when I was born in a very little village, which was a summer resort, we has sulphuric waters, which were curing rheumatism and people were coming--a lot of people were coming in the summer time--and I'm born in August. When I was born the first child in a wealthy family, my father invited a kind of miraculous rabbi which was, [[strikethrough]] which [[/strikethrough]] who needed sulphuric water, he couldn't cure his rheumatism by his miracles. And to bless me. So he came to my mother, took me in his hands,