I grew up in a secluded part of Tennessee in a family of artists who all had vocations outside of art making; musicians, painters, writers, ceramicists, actors, and architects working in factories, elementary schools, libraries, and hospitals. My earliest memory about wanting to be an artist was after seeing a PBS show on making fiddles. By the end of the show I had decided that I needed to be a fiddler and was encouraged by my parents to learn the violin. In the first lesson we were given the task to build a mock-violin out of a shoe box, string, wood and glue. I found myself consumed with making the cardboard instrument and quickly realized that I did not in fact want to practice a real violin, but instead build a fake one.