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I am an artisan. I only became an artist when people watch what I do. That is when it becomes art.

You know, my parents had a restaurant. And I left home, actually, in 1949, when I was 13 years old, to go into apprenticeship. And actually when I left home, home was a restaurant - like I said, my mother was a chef. So I can't remember any time in my life, from age 5, 6, that I wasn't in a kitchen.

As I mentioned, I was a carpenter for a time.

From the time I was a small boy, I remember working in the fields with my grandfather and father. We weren't growing grapes, but we were farming crops, creating something good out of the earth.

My mum brought me to my first job when I was 12. I started electrical work at her plant. She was an engineer, a technical expert, at one of the plants in the south, and in the summer she brought me in and I learnt how industrial things work: casting, electricity, maintenance, everything.

Growing up, I knew you were supposed to have a profession - and something better than being a shopkeeper, which is what my parents were.

I come from a family of business people, but I had the idea I wanted to become an artist.

My parents were entrepreneurs. I grew up believing in the power of innovation.

When I was 18, I began attending college for art and design, and I designed all sorts of things from furniture to industrial designs and even watches.

I was a fixer, a builder - an inventor - ever since I can remember.