Robert Motherwell loved to paint as a boy and won an art scholarship when he was only eleven. His father encouraged him to finish school, however, and promised him fifty dollars a week indefinitely if he would get an advanced degree as an “insurance policy” before devoting his life to painting.

Dale Chihuly founded Pilchuck Glass School in 1971. A venue for both established artists and new students, Pilchuck is now the world’s primary education center for glass art.

Jacob Lawrence grew up in Harlem in the 1930s, where, despite the Depression, he found a “real vitality” among the black artists, poets, and writers in the community. He studied at the Harlem Art Workshop and joined the “306” studio, where he met his future wife, Gwendolyn Knight.

Howard Kottler received his master's from Cranbrook Academy and his doctoral degree from Ohio State. His humorous art draws upon Dada, art deco, pop and cubism. In his later years Kottler began to produce pieces that focused on the relationships between dogs and their owners.

Dan Schmitt went to college intending to become a biologist. In his junior year, however, he studied ceramics in Japan, and after graduating in 1996 he began a master’s program in fine arts at Kent State University.