John Sheridan
I was born in Detroit at a time cars had fins and chrome and unions. I lived in a sometimes unstable household with very responsible if oppressed women and often the absence of men (irresponsible or not). It was not a cheery environment, and we skated on the edge of poverty. But my mother drew and this seemed a natural activity so I picked it up very early and I enjoyed drawing whatever I liked, with no supervision but also no encouragement. I remember seeing my mother's newly opened box of pastels in rows of vivid stepped shades of cascading colors and it seemed like an altar to me. To worship the rainbow. I sketched on and off until high school where I was persuaded to study Latin and German instead of art, to prepare me for medical school. I did indeed get accepted to an elite, new, accelerated six-year medical program right out of high school at the University of Michigan Medical School. I began drawing again in my first year of college, mostly realistic caricatures of professors and some fellow students. Taking some formal art classes after my freshman year I quickly fell in love with ART and its wonderful story and realized I could not be both a physician and an artist and so I followed my heart, left the medical program and enrolled in the College of Art. I have been an artist and studied art ever since. Never interested in the usual entrapping ideas of 'career', 'success', 'fame' or selling my art for money, I have always followed the untrodden path of my own mind and I have implicitly followed wherever its great enthusiasm has led and leads me now.
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