"I remember seeing the murals in the Senate building in Jefferson City, Missouri when I was about 3 years old. I don't know how I remembered them or the artist, Thomas Hart Benton, nephew to the great senator of the same name, but I did."

"I remember in first grade, I had a favorite book about the Sandman. The cover had a black horse, I believe called Midnight, that stretched across the cover and was ridden by the sandman sprinkling sleepy sand on people below. I must have drawn that horse dozens of times."

"There were no art classes in my schools when I was growing up. ( I went to 6 elementary schools.) Rex and I got to choose one nice gift for Christmas when we were in high school. I chose an oil painting set one Christmas. Junior year, I think. I painted a still life of fruit. It is framed in my hallway. I was 15."