[Mike McCarty]

When I was in the seventh grade I was placed in a drafting class. From what I can remember, we were asked to do pencil drawings of balls, cubes, pyramids and such. After a few of weeks the teacher separated me from the bunch and set me to work on my own. After a few more weeks he called my Mother and Father down to the school to show them what I had been doing. The teacher suggested to them that I was doing work that was well beyond my years and that I should get some kind of specialized training. Naturally, I spent the remainder of my school years playing football and chasing girls. The football has left my knees to ache, and the girls have turned my mind to mush.

The next time I had any serious contact with art, other than museums and galleries, was about twenty years later. I always felt a sense of closeness with the visual arts. My grandmother earned a meager living as a seamstress and landscape painter. When we visited her she always had something on her easel. She never attempted to teach me, it was always just her doing her work and me watching. But I