After high school I went to the San Francisco Art Institute, and I began a formalized art education where we went through the history of art but we also went through the art of my contemporaries.
The first professional training I received of any kind was when I was 14 years old and we were in Kansas City, Missouri. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute for one summer.
'Chicago' is all about precision.
I knew I had to take my ambition more seriously, so I enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, in the fall, I went on a tour of my own. I didn't go to New York because that was too well known for its art scene.
I went to school at the San Francisco Art Institute, thinking I was going to become an art teacher. Within the first six months I was there, I was told that I couldn't be an art teacher unless I became an artist first.
I wanted to show the community you can build something here without having to raid taxpayers' dollars. What better way to show the community what we're all about, as a welcome to come to the Institute of Contemporary Art and be a part of what we're doing here?
Chicago has quickly become one of my favorite places in the world.
The School of the Art Institute is an extraordinary teaching institution by the fact that it believes that active studio artists are good teachers. That may seem an obvious statement, but in higher education, it is often the student's course evaluations that win the day with administrators.
Chicago is amazing.
I went back to the Art Institute, then spent the summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. That's what really awakened me. I made a lot of oil paintings and my first performance.
Sometimes, I even learn new techniques from my students. Although I am still a student at the Art Institute, I think that I have learnt a lot from the classes that I have already taken.
I find that I have improved in my craft and I have improved considerably in my ability to critique other people's artwork. I forgot to mention that my course of study at the Art Institute is BSC in Media Arts and Animation.
