I was born in Connecticut, number 99 Ward Street on the 11th month of the 22nd day of the year '55. It's fascinating for me because everything is double. It was a house that was across the street from the cemetery. The house itself, the foundation was built in the 1700s, so it had these wide floorboards and had this kind of comforting, haunted atmosphere to it. To me, the house itself was very much a part of the family as much as any person. The house itself had personality. The house itself was sometimes a more dependable personality, because it was always the same. Whereas my parents were totally unpredictable. I didn't know what they were going to do next. So the house was a real character, a good friend. You see it in my paintings a lot, it recurs over and over again. Also when I'm painting other people, whether it's Poe, or Panzram... like with Poe, you'll see the homes are often the one the person is closest to or the one that they died in, but they have a significance. But with Panzram, it was the Minnesota Boys Training School of his childhood, and then Danmoor prison -- two significant homes in his life, and which must have been very significant to him. Even if you're not consciously aware of it, they have an enormous influence over your life. And then the environment, not only the house but its surroundings. For me, the cemetery was the surroundings, and it was a playground, a place that I explored and did all kinds of childhood things, and witnessed what death was. I'd see people being put in the ground... Rituals of strangers being around the graves, lowering a loved one into the ground, and their emotions. So it was a fascination for me. (continues....)

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