School Of the art Institute of Chicago

In high school I was accepted to This college. My parents broke the news to me that they couldnt afford to send me, I didnt know enough about scholarships and financial aid so I got a job with a tree company cutting down trees while my friends went off to college I stayed home and built railroad tie walls in the snow and cut down trees. That was the toughest lesson of my life. Every day I worked cutting down trees I thought about art and the unfairness of life and I sharpened the axe of my soul and promised to myself I would make it as an artist in this world no matter what happened, even if it killed. When I finally was able to afford art school (in NYC) I already felt like an adult, I had started my own glass etching business and I had worked a job for a year that was hellish and brutal and almost killed me ( I had a tree fall on me so hard that I went blind for hours) When I got to art school, my peers felt like a bunch of soft spoiled kids. They had no stare, they hadnt lived and went right from high school on daddies dime to art school. I never hung out with groups in art school, I stayed alone and worked and worked. I didnt even have people to talk to because I liked the old masters beyond all and these kids were talking about science fiction art and modern art etc. Some lessons in life never leave you. To this day I work harder than most humans because those memories are close behind me. I often wonder what would have happened if If I was able to go to the School of art institute chicago..Hopefully I wouldnt have become one of these con-artists...In life you either man up and become something or you fold and become weak and make excuses for what you could have been, should have been. I have no sympathy for excuses.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/17/school-of-the-art-institu_n_877864.html#s292058

I find it interesting how lessons that happened 20 years ago can still stick with you, when I spend six months on my couch trying to write a movie by the seat of my pants or when I buy a new canvas or I have more deadlines than a human can handle I think back to my feet freezing or lying on the ground blind with a serious head injury...I am still an insanely competitive artist, not with others but with myself. Most other artists to me mean as much to me as a loaf of bread in a supermarket in some rural new jersey supermarket..I dont think about them much...Im too busy working.