The best thing my dad did was we went to this art store and there was this really big box of pastels.
And it was on the sale table but it was still very pricey. It was a wooden box and it has all these beautiful Degas pastels in it. And so we took it up to the counter and the fellow who was at the register said, well, you know, that’s really for professionals.
And my dad said, “My daughter is an artist.” And so he bought me this — and I still use it. It’s all beat up and there’s little chunks of pastels and I don’t have all the colors, but I still use it. So that was like this just wonderful thing. He made me feel like, well, I really was an artist.