In the early Seventies, I studied drawing with Judith Nelson for two or three semesters at Goddard College. About 1981, I began going to Bill Brauer's weekly life-drawing classes in Montpelier. At that time, he was just beginning to teach about color, and allowed students to use any medium. I learned a lot about oil painting during the four or five years I attended his classes. I don't know when I first thought about being an artist. In my family, I was supposed to be the "artistic one," although it was unclear how that destiny was to be fulfilled. I didn't have any training as a painter until well after college. At some point during the time I was first taking painting classes, I thought that if only I could learn to put paint down in a beautiful way, I wouldn't want much else. Perhaps that came from my admiration for the New York Abstract Expressionists. That feeling about paint still motivates me.