I've been collecting since college, .. When we're children, we're taught to draw in the lines, use certain colors. In this art, the talent and the creativity we had as children hasn't been squashed. The early stuff is still there.
In other words these children, by avoiding the early drill on combinations, tables, and that sort of thing, had been able, in one year, to attain the level of accomplishment which the traditionally taught children had reached after three and one-half years of arithmetical drill.
Ever since I had my first child I have been passionate in my commitment to preserve our precious resources for my children and their children's children. This is the obligation of all of us visiting this planet for a limited time.
I founded 'Point Hope' so that I could accomplish some things I wanted to do for children who had no one to advocate for them, children who had no voice. Since I have been blessed with a voice on the radio each night, I thought I would use my celebrity position and my financial resources to help these kids.
I've been an art collector since the Sixties, and I kept it very separate from my showbusiness career. I've had art shows since the early Nineties, a museum show that travelled to four countries. I've had three or four art books; it's just another way I have to tell stories.
If it's taught well, art really is important to kids early on. It helps children develop language and allows them to see themselves in a way that isn't right or wrong, because if they draw an animal with five legs instead of four, nobody's criticizing them for it.
I have always been making art from an early age but for nearly forty years did computer programming to earn a living. I bought a house and put my wife and three children through college. Now that diversion is over so I can finally paint full time.
I had been taught that if I cried, to be quiet about it, so whereas I never howled, the least thing made me cry both at school and at home. Crying tends to separate a child from other children, for even children dislike a cry baby, and I had no friends in the world.
My children were taught at an early age how money works and that it comes from hard work. They've been on a commission - not an allowance - since they were little. They learned that if they worked around the house, they got paid. If they didn't work, they didn't get paid.
One thing that all of my children, biological and foster children, have taught me is the unbelievable diversity of talent and giftedness that all people have.
There's been no real reason to move to LA. The stuff I've done for America has been done in Europe anyway. We made a decision early on that we'd find our base and not shake the children's world as much as mine.
I've been trying to... Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.
In the last 20 years of collecting contemporary African art, I have been bombarded by incredible shapes and colors that I now want to translate into clothes.
I think of the people who commit these acts as children. They're in their 20s, but like certain children, they have been told only one story, over and over. Like most children, they believe in an easily identifiable good and evil, and like most children, they are capable of unthinkable cruelty.
I love Inuit art, and most anything you would find in a folk art museum, as well as children's art or children's book illustrators or illustrators in general - all the kinds of work that my paintings would draw comparisons to.
My uncle, who's an art teacher, took me under his wing and gave me a really strong foundation in art. I spent summers with him, and he taught me how to draw, how to see, how to mix colors, how to use different mediums and perspective, and so forth.
Everybody's got to do something... I'd been on my own since an early age and I thought I better find something to do to buy biscuits and stuff. From high school onwards I was earning my way with photography, one way or another, working in darkrooms and taking pictures of weddings, neighbors' children and so on.