I asked my tenth grade art teacher, 'Can I please draw something else? Something real?' I was tired of trying to produce 'weird' artwork styles he kept asking for, so he agreed to give me six weeks in the back room by myself to see what I could do. The result: 'Hands,' my first real drawing. He entered it into The Congressional Arts Caucus competition for my district and it won Best of Show. The drawing hung in the U.S. Capitol Building from 1992 to 1993, and has won awards in every competition I have entered it in. He then challenged me to...more
