Sometimes it takes me days or weeks to get something clear in my head on what I want to do. Everything is in steps. One thing leads to another.

You have to be a little scared of what you're doing. Otherwise, you just paint the same masterpiece a little worse.

Picasso and Matisse were the guys I wanted to get away from, and cubism is all still lifes. Their paintings are all closed drawings. And still life is a perfect form for that. By the mid-'50s, I sort of dropped the still life. The large picture was a way of getting around them, too. The abstract expressionists were also into the large form because it was a way of getting around Matisse and Picasso. Picasso can't paint big paintings. Matisse didn't bother after a certain point.

Sometimes it takes me days or weeks to get something clear in my head on what I want to do. Everything is in steps. One thing leads to another.

What's in front of me is what's most interesting.

Part of what Im about is seeing how I can paint the same thing differently instead of different things the same way.

I like to make an image that is so simple you can't avoid it, and so complicated you can't figure it out.