Folk art is art made by an untrained person who decides for himself what art is. It's their interpretation of the way they see the world. It's not like a formal thing where you go to some big university and study art. It takes various forms and is a very loose definition. Oh yes. For example, Grandma Moses was a folk artist because she was untrained and picked up a brush and said, 'Well, this is what painting looks like to me' and other people then validated it. I've been doing these for a number of years but only since I retired. I was an educator and I did that for 30 years. As I moved up the line from teacher to guidance counsellor to principal, I found it very stressful dealing with 30 or 60 or 90 people all day long.

And, of course, when you get to be a principal it's not limited to 30 children, you're dealing with the whole community, the parents, everybody. So I decided that, for as long as I was teaching, I would take some other courses. I went to a school of general studies and so I took Chinese, Tai Chi, and some drawing classes. By the time I was ready to retire it wasn't really a question of 'what am I going to do?' but 'which of the many things that I had done in my life would I like to focus on now?'.

When I retired to Florida from New York City I joined a wood carvers' club. That's when I started making these little creatures. Then one day somebody ? probably my wife ? asked what I was going to do with all this stuff. I recall that a school teacher regularly says to her art students, 'Let's make dioramas ? bring a shoe box into school tomorrow'.

Well, I made about eight dioramas and the reaction was sensational. There was a flea market where I used to show them and they proved very interesting to a great number of people. A couple of guys who were 'art people' they started buying them like they were crazy. They said, 'What wonderful folk art', which is where the name folk art came from.

Almost from the time I could pick up a pencil I was always trying to draw stuff. We came from a family of six children and each of us had a different skill. There was a fellow in the neighbourhood who was an excellent artist and he used to come and look at my stuff and say, 'Gee, that's good'.

The very thought of dreaming something up in your head and putting it down on paper ? that's what fascinated me. I had a certain feeling that you can invent something out of your own head, with nobody telling you what to do and then other people would appreciate it. That still carries through with me today.

My wife and I travel a lot and I never like to make the same thing twice. We've been to Kenya and Italy and South America and I was in Mexico with the army for a little bit. I will think about something that I've experienced and that's how it comes about.

It takes about ten days to make one. I start with a piece of door skin on which I'll paint the background and, once I have an idea, I'll draw out the figure on a piece of bass wood and, using a jeweller's saw, cut out the shape. I will then use a knife to contour the figure and give it shape.

I could make them quicker but I'm working with liquids ? glue and paint ? and all of that has to dry.

I would say my work is much better now. The earlier stuff was very simple. The difficult thing is to create perspective. The dioramas are only an inch deep as you can see, but I want to be able to portray a mile. I have to do it in such a way that your eye tells you that it goes back forever. That's probably the hardest part.

I've been invited down here by the Masterworks Foundation to be their artist-in-residence for ten weeks. During my time here I'm to produce my art and my reflections of Bermuda. Actually it was just very inspiring to have someone invite me down here for ten weeks in the first place. The show opens on Friday and will be culmination of the work I've done here and earlier stuff. I've brought ten pieces with me and I've completed 12 while I was here. I wanted to go to music and art school but when you have six kids it's hard to feed them and it was the depression and my father didn't have a job. The art school was in the city and we were in Brooklyn and so to travel to school would have cost a nickel each way ? ten cents a day.

We just couldn't afford it so I went to Boys High. It was a college-bound school but I just plodded along because I didn't think I would get to college ? we couldn't afford it. But some college looked at my stuff and said, 'We want this kid to come here' and it just changed my life.

My sister was a substitute teacher. I thought that looked pretty good so I started taking courses in education to become a teacher. I started as a substitute teacher at my old school. There weren't that many blacks at the school but the principal said to me, 'These kids need you because they don't see a black man that's successful. You could become the father of the school'.

That just got into my mind ? it hit me where I live, you know. And so I stayed and that's what I ended up becoming. Over the years I've thought about it and there are so many kids who don't have people looking after them, looking at what they're doing ? particularly black kids ? and so I became a counsellor because of that and then went on to be principal. It was really rough because as you move up you get more and more headaches. By the time I retired I had had enough because you're really not teaching, you're dealing with school boards and you become a jack of all trades.

You pay them some money because they have to raise their families. If you can't do that, men are not going to go into teaching. It's a lot of work and if you don't love it . . . You have to love people and love children and be a caring person.

We have a similar situation in New York but it's a great profession. And as a counsellor you can take one particular child and correct whatever the problem is that they have and then, later in life, see that that child has become somebody.

Actually this is our first time back since our honeymoon 52 years ago. How much has it changed? Well, I can remember what it was like 52 years ago but now I don't recognise anything. It's totally different. We stayed in a place called the Sunset Lodge in Pembroke.

I haven't seen it yet but I'm told it no longer exists (). When we came down it was one of just a few hotels that black people could go to.

Now that's totally blown out, I don't see that sort of racial discrimination. I think Bermuda is a harmonious place where people are so intermixed ? it's ridiculous to talk about black and white. I try and look at a person and say, 'Well, is that a Bermudian?' and I just can't.

If I go to Barbados and see someone I can say, 'Well, he's a Bajan' but you can't do that here and I think that's great. You have Portuguese and French and black and white. I think that's what has changed.

But to be honest, on your honeymoon you're not going to get to see too much of Bermuda.