I was born on a Pennsylvania farm in 1955 and raised in Pittsburgh.

Once, on Christmas Eve in 1957, I ate a glass ornament, plugged the family toilet with a towel, and broke my arm all in one day. My father took the tree down and declared the holidays over.

After that, I didn’t speak for a year—and used to sit under a bush, waiting to grow older.

Getting my feet on the ground

Looking back, I seem to have been working carefully with my hands, on the fringes of the art world, for almost 40 years.

As a youngster I loved making something from nothing. I taught myself to cut stencils and silk-screen, and to weave on a simple (heddle) loom. I also sewed, creating fanciful and practical three-dimensional shapes in space.

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