As far back as I can remember I loved to draw and paint. My mother says it began as soon as I could hold a pencil. My parents both encouraged me on Christmas and birthdays with pencil sets, pastels, good art paper, oil paints and books on art about Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Gaughin, Renoir, Dali, Holbein, Toulouse-Lautrec, Titian, Rembrandt, Hopper and many of the Impressionists. They took me into NYC many times to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see these great works of art and would show me any movies that came on about artists, eg; Lust for life, The agony and the ecstasy come to mind. They had a great reverence and respect for art and I grew up inspired by these artists. My father loved to play music, he encouraged me to draw or paint as he played beautiful operas, Caruso, Classical music and this helped me get in touch with a finer nature within myself even as a young child.