 He graduated from the Satya Community School, an alternative high school in Lincoln, Massachusetts, where he met Nan Goldin at the age of 14.On October 26, 2014, at the age of 60, he died in Los Angeles, California due to liver cancer.Armstrong entered into the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as a painting major, but soon switched to photography after studying alongside Goldin, with whom he shared an apartment.