I think mostly what I did when I was a kid was make stuff. And so I drew all the time and I also had a — I called it a GI Joe island — in the back yard. There was a little, undeveloped piece of land behind my house in New Jersey. And the developments for other houses were slowly encroaching in, so every once in a while it would be dug up and new houses would appear. But there was still this section that was trees that butted up against my yard. And it was still pretty wild. It was a little piece of woods right in our backyard.
At the edge of the woods I built this whole GI Joe island with fortresses and tree houses and roads. I don’t think I actually brought GI Joe out into it too much. I think it was mostly just the active building all of these things. Also on the edge of the house I remember building a little sort of fantasy home for some trolls that I had. I used to have those little troll dolls with the big, spiky hair. And my dog got to it at one point and ate out its eye, and its arm was bitten off and I made it a new arm out of clay.
I remember very painstakingly trying to match the color of the skin of the troll through the arm. And then I cut its hair because it needed a little hair cut but I figured it would grow back. And it hasn’t yet but I’m still kind of hoping. I did that a lot. I took art classes outside of school, as well as having good art classes in school. I grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and they’re pretty well known for having a really good art program in their public schools.
I met an art teacher when I was in 5th grade named Eileen Sutton and I worked with her from the time I was in 5th grade all the way up through high school. She was a really big influence on me and so I would go and do drawing classes with her, and I learned how to paint from her. Probably the main thing I was doing as a kid was drawing.
