My culture-deprived, aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was exposed to the arts, but there was no one in my family who was an artist.
I grew up in a very small, rural country town, and we didn't really have 'the arts.'
I went to art school when I was little.
My own interest in art was because of my mother. My father didn't like contemporary art, so he didn't give her large sums to spend. So, she began buying prints and drawings. During my school days, I remember sitting in on many of the early meetings.
I owe much to mother. She had an expert's understanding, but also approached art emotionally.
I went to art school in the days when it was what you did if you didn't want to be like everybody else. You wanted to be strange and different, and art school encouraged that. We hated the drama students - they were guys with pipes and cardigans.
I grew up in a Southside suburb of Chicago. It was idyllic. But I was plunked into a family that was not artistic and didn't know how to deal with my emotions.
I was an art student at the time, like thousands of others.
When I was growing up, nothing unpleasant was shown in the home. And when I was in art school, the only art that was presented to me was Abstract Expressionism. But I was interested in the grim stuff. It seemed more exciting.
My mother was a high school arts teacher, so I was always surrounded by the arts.