“I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. I wasn't the most academically perfect student in secondary school, although I excelled in the graphic arts. I basically skipped my last year of high school and went to art school. I had only just turned seventeen when I started at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. This was when everything changed for me. I took my study of painting and drawing seriously, although I was always much younger than my schoolmates. In my sophomore and junior years, I received scholarship awards for merit competitions from the college.

