We've got a nation of people who have one eye looking out for the next speed camera, another looking for a speed limit sign and another looking at the speedometer - which is a bit of a shame, when you only have two eyes.
There were neighbors that I played with and did all the things that children do. I did mow the lawn. I did help with various things that needed to be done to occupy my time.
Jack Sturtzer, one of my cousins, had gone to art school and suggested that I might be interested in a private school called the Art Institute of Buffalo, and in fact that is what happened. So upon graduation in 1948, I then went to stay with my cousins on Seventeenth Street and enrolled in the program at the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue.
I was engaged in all the required courses of math and geometry, but the area that I blossomed in was the art program.
Going back to the elementary school days, I was always drawing. I entered a Victory poster competition and won the top award that recognized my artistic instincts.
It was only when I got to high school and was in the art program that my artistic talent was recognized. The art program was directed by a wonderful and a very important person in my life - Charlotte Ranger, who was referred to as Mrs. Ranger. She had been teaching in the school for many years.
I became a bit of a teacher's pet, and it became known in the school by both faculty and students that I really excelled in the arts. So that recognition I credit for my growing interest in art that continued to evolve later on.
In thinking back, not having any experience in any other elementary school, there may have been an advantage of being with different age groups to benefit from what they were learning in a more advanced capacity. With a small group like that, there was a lot of one-to-one teaching.
At school there were some programs in music. I did take piano lessons, and we had a piano at home. I got very interested in that.
At the end of the elementary program, I then had to move onto high school. Simultaneously, my parents moved to Attica to a suburban area not far from the well-known Attica State Prison. Then I would take the school bus which was a very short distance away, where I was involved with a much larger community.
My parents' names were Florian and Mabel Smith. My mother's maiden name was Dersam. They were of German heritage and were part of a family community with my grandparents and uncles and relatives. I was an only child.
At one point I had dreams of being in the school band, but I didn't play an instrument that qualified me, and that was a problem. I always had fantasies to be part of that, but I did take my piano lessons quite seriously.
It [piano lessons] wasn't a priority, but it was an interest and through that I became acquainted with classical music, which was a main interest at the time.
Charles Burchfield was exceptional. As such an accomplished artist, he had limited previous association with academia and teaching.
Fortunately, I had cousins who lived in Buffalo and would often go to visit them, which I loved to do because I liked Buffalo as it was a big city. Even today, the bigger the city, the better.
The class situation [at Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue] was such that one would be very much on their own to paint or draw. The faculty was roving to give opinions or help out technically, which all the faculty did very well.
I graduated in June 1948 and then went in the fall to the art school. I stayed with my cousins on Seventeenth Street in the beginning, and later had my own apartment very near there and was able to walk to the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue. The school had a faculty of local artists - Jeanette and Robert Blair, James Vullo who were well known in the area. It was a school that I think thrived on returning GIs, as many schools did at that time. It was a very informal program - but it was professional.
I'm pleased to say that it [ a paper on the history of Attica] got much recognition with a 99 grade. It was shown to the Attica Historical Society, who enthusiastically responded to it and read it at one of their annual meetings resulting in an article in the local newspaper about this excellent paper being presented. As I now look back at it, I think of that as being really my first book and did indicate that I did have interest in research.
In a social studies class I did a paper on the history of Attica, which ended up being a little book that I created.
Even today, the bigger the city, the better. That's why I live in New York.
At home, the radio was a big source and the classic radio programs we would listen to like Amos and Andy and whatever other ones there were.
In terms of any sacrifices at the time [of World War II], I was somewhat protected living on a small farm where there was food, different perhaps from living in a city environment. I know such things as gas rationing did exist, but it wasn't anything that interfered with my daily activity.
There was a certain amount of discipline, I think; my parents wanted to be sure that I was not just sitting around doing nothing.
The environment itself was culturally a vacuum, in that there was simply nothing that would inspire me in the arts. But my parents were always very supportive of anything that I explored or wanted to do.
He [my father] didn't have a basement workshop as such, but I know that he did build things, construct things, repair things. My mother, likewise, was sewing and doing activities that often take place in a household.