My earliest recollection of actually “making art” was at about age five, right after my parents and I returned from a day at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. My parents were not into art, so we did not visit the painting galleries. However, we did view a room filled with knight’s armor, and that had a huge impact on me. When we got home, I began to draw knights in armor, based on the examples I had seen that day in the Carnegie. I didn’t have a sketchbook then, or access to drawing paper. My mom provided me with flattened paper grocery sacks and pieces of white card stock that was part of the packaging of new shirts. Even back then, without my realizing it, I was making art using repurposed materials.  Even at that early stage in my life I was telling people I was going to be an…