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great vaudeville house called the Vindome. And the Vindome had Louis Armstrong, was playing there at the time. They had all the old greats there. And so, as a kid, I used to not accept music as a means of communication. Somehow the principle got in my head that just drawing was a means of communication. But I didn't always know exactly...really a little untruth there...exactly what I wanted to do with my life. It didn't seem too important to me what I did with my life. I couldn't think that far ahead about a lifespan. I knew what I wanted to do from day to day, and the day to day thing was to be able to speak through some means other than words. With my mother even, I had no communication with my mother. I had no communication with my step-father. So I was sort of just isolated and left alone, as I was the only child as a kid. And left alone_____became so important. And then, when I was about eight I guess, my mother gave me an oil painting set, and I had no idea of how to use oil or anything. I remember there was a bottle of turpentine and a bottle of linseed oil in it. I had no idea how to use the linseed oil, how to use kit. And it suddenly occurred to me once that it would be faster that if I took the linseed oil and poured it on the oil paints, that this might be the way to use it. Well, you can imagine when I took this oily, sloppy mess and it all ran together. And I had taken down one of my mother's old green,

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1918
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1941