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After the Art Institute, what made you go to Paris?

I had some credits on the G.I. Bill left over after I had gone to the Chicago Institute at night for four years, and that enabled me to go to school in Paris. That experience really changed my life. Art was the only thing I was good at, and I kind of knew that Paris represented the romantic artistic ideal. I still had fifteen months of the G.I. Bill left, and in 1952, you could live in Parison [[Paris on]] the $105 a month I was getting. They paid your tuition and gave you all your art materials, and all you needed to do was budget yourself. I was married at the time, so I got a little more than the single artists. I guess another reason I went is because I,m [[I'm]] not a native New Yorker. Things were happening in New York City, important things for art. But there were also many New Yorkers over in Paris.  There was more opportunity for young artists there.  When artists had gone there earlier, it was mostly on a grant or because they had some money.  But in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the G.I. Bill made it possible for a lot of poor artists, some of whom are famous noe, [[now]] to go to Paris.

What was school like for you then in Paris?

This school I went to, they called it an academy, L'Academie de la Grand Chaumerie, wasn't as formal as the Chicago Institute. This was not the Beaux Arts; it was like a workshop school, which was good for me. You could just show up; there was no attendance; the instructors would just show up too. In between, if you allowed, a student might look over your shoulder. When the instructors walked in, they would go from easel to easel and pass a quick judgement. And all the students would hang around to listen to what they were saying. This was in January of 1952. I remember one instructor, his name was Goreg, saying, "Ah, your work has a certain knack to it." I think what he meant is this sense of movement I have. I feel this has something to do with my life. We moved so much when I was a kid, from home to home, to Chicago, on buses, trains.

What were the most significant things that happened to you in Paris?

It was my first introduction to natural light, for one thing. At the Institute, I worked at night. In Paris, I got to see and feel my work in daylight. The colors changed; I noticed it.

Most significantly, in Paris I was talking to many famous people. We were talking about art. We would discuss how realistic painting of the figure is just a duplication of nature, and so no matter how well it was painted, even if it isn't exactly like what you're copying, it't [[it's]] not the truth. But with my scientific