I don't do landscapes, but I spend a lot of time walking in the woods—well, like the time I spend in my backyard, I'm pretty much just looking at birds and just feeling what the day's like. We go out and gather morels and we gather blackberries for wine; we spend a lot of time outside.

I couldn't be an artist if I had to live in a big city in a little apartment with no lawn. So it does affect me a lot to live in the Midwest and to live in a little town—to have space.

I think the most frustrating thing is that art is not a really high priority for most Iowans. In fact, Sandra Cisneros, the author who lives in San Antonio, Texas, attended the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop and lived here for awhile, and she said, "What I learned in Iowa was to make art as if no one would ever see it," which was really depressing! And I think that's extreme. I don't think that it's that bad. I think there are a lot of artists working and showing their work. But certainly, in the town where I grew up, art is something you would do as a hobby. It's not something that you would do as your life work or something that you would spend a lot of money on. And it would be exciting to live someplace where art was maybe more of a priority for people.

I could've lived anywhere, including Europe. I chose Iowa because basically I am a farmer and a woodsman, and I need to be close to the soil and the trees. To live here, to see the farmers coming and going, and the wildlife, of which there is aplenty. See, I like that. One of the parts of education and growing up and maturing, is to find out who you are and what are the things that you could do that will help you to give back the best that you have. And I can give back some rather good things. I may not be the best artist that the world has ever seen, probably not. But I can tell you one thing—I'm not the worst one either.