I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My mother came from a very affluent background, very Westernized, while my father was more Eastern. So I've had a very good blend of the East and the West. I guess this has been extremely helpful in making my career and the way I function.
I've always been drawn to the American style in the late '50s and '60s.
I wanted to get out of this country and experience different ways of seeing the world. So I went to Europe, but I went as an artist. I was increasing my skill set and exploring storytelling through painting.
I have made sense of my life by developing an ability to analyze Mainstream American Cultural Artifacts.
Being an American is something I wanted to be for a very long time, probably since I saw the moon landing when I was a child.
I appear to be drawn to iconic characters and what they reflect back to our cultures.
Most of my life I was occupied with American television and American food. My ethnicity was my choice. It still is.
You couldn't escape the literary atmosphere in our home. I grew up as a Britisher. I played a protagonist of every nationality in stage adaptations of Shakespeare and Brecht. I graduated from Yale. When I moved to the U.S., I realized with some amount of surprise that I was seen as an ethnic actor.
I moved to Holland because I wanted to see American art.
I grew up in Rome, in actually what I would say was a liberal, open-minded family. My father was an architect and my mother was a teacher of art history, so it was sort of intellectual, and maybe a bit much for me when I was a child.
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