Interview with
Lon Levin
When
did
you
first
think
thing you wanted to do? discouraged
by
about
Were family, friends,
art
as
some-
you encouraged or teachers,
mentors?
I was seven years old when art came into my life. When I was young boy my mother would go grocery shopping, and during that time she would go to the A&P grocery store. She would give me the brown paper bags from the A&P and I would open them up and use them as drawing paper to do my art with. I’m the second oldest of five children and the only one who would get the brown paper bags, well I was the only one who wanted them. My siblings were not interested in the arts at all. This is how it all started, the dream of me wanting to be an artist. With that kind of support what else can I do but to dream big and pave my way to a career in art. I would like to talk about support and why it’s important. For a young artist and for that matter any artist to have support in the making of their career. I know that most parents never ever want their child to grow up to be anything in the creative arts. But I’m telling you now if you take on this fight you will lose, I know my mother and stepdad did. You see don’t give a stray cat milk if you don’t want them to stay. But my story did not start with my mom, it started with my older brother Charles. Yep my big brother.
Let me tell you how this happen. Well this story starts with fire. Okay it was a match, one day my brother and I was playing on the stoop in Brooklyn, and we decided that we're going to play with matches. My brother liked to play army, and with a book of matchsticks, we decided we would get an army together. My brother and I were just striking matches trying to make an army when an old lady stuck her head out the window and told us to stop playing with matches. My brother told the old lady to mind her business and she stuck her head back inside her apartment. Ten minutes passed and then we heard a fire truck. The fire truck went streaming down the street and it stopped right in front of my brother and I. A fireman got out of the truck and said, “Are you kids playing with matches?” Of course, we said, “No.” We were then asked to get into the fire truck and they drove us to their fire station. At the fire station, they gave us a tour and showed us where they slept, where they ate, and even went up and down the fire pole which was fun.
