Susan Ryan: Do you think you have particular stylistic periods? . . . I'm wondering when you being to see your first period.
Robert Indiana: I was very conscious of wanting to be an artist, and taking it on as a serious type of thing when I was six years old. So yes, my early work was very realistic and very much influenced by American Regionalism, Thomas Hart Benton, Reginald Marsh, and Grant Wood.
Ryan: Where did you see these?
Indiana: These were the artists of the day. Life magazine was probably my best instructor. . . . I can remember the very first, the day my father brought the very first issue of Life magazine [November 23, 1936] on the front porch.
Excerpt from Susan Elizabeth, interview with Robert Indiana. Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech Archive 1987–2005, August 28, 1989.