Betsy Hall (artist) and Bruce Kriedler (artist), Art Academy of Cincinnati 1976 in the 3rd floor painting studio. Hip before hip was hip. After 2 years, a class gravitated to the 3rd floor. Just down the hall, Dwertman and I (toe knee aka Stenger) took over a storage room and I painted over tossed scrap wood. Across the hall Stewart Goldman painted all night to country music. A secret back tunnel took us in to the heart of the Duvenck galleries and massive painting/sculpture glleries of the Cincinnati Art Museum... 4 years of Art philosphy, rivalries, and volleyballgame wars between faculty classes, visiting guest painters & philosophers-world thinkers/movers/changers and Art Eccentrics(Wayne Thiebaud, Bucky Fuller, Elmer Bischof )... I knew from day one I was learning as much/more from this community of creative travelers than through the brush. In those days, it wasn't a degree program. On strngth of portfolio we each earned entry. Out of hundreds of applicants a class of 28... there were enough in my pool to double the class to 63, or so. A test for expansion. Half our tuition was paid by the Cincinnati Museum Benefactors. Every major museum opening, I'd waltz in between my own painting sessions, grab some wine and cheez and jeer at the millionaires (like and idiot). These days, I feel incredibly grateful that I was able to paint my way through that place among these challenging artists. Once you hit a certain level, you could take over a section of space and fill it up as this place was filled.... the back art was a current huge piece in process by a classmate. Hours drifted by, oil paint everywhere.... Jerry the Janitor rolled his own smokes and jabber-jabbered... nobody understood what he was talking about. I often wonder how the administration trained the janitors to do/not to do in relation to the students. I never heard a complaint for the paint spills... it was as if they were explicitly told to completely respect our creative flow and serve our process... and they sure did. Never had a support team treat me with so much respect since then.... Later on (4 years later), my sister Regina traveled through the Academy in her own way, grabbed up scholorships and awards. I heard back from her, the things my own instructors never told me in person... how great a painter I was and stuff like that. Anyone who knew me in these times knows I was wlking the rebel wild eccentric side of life... some say it's still the same. Maybe some artists are just that way. Maybe it's the job hazard of seeing colors in communion off the map.... still figuring that one out.... yeah yeah yeah