My mother thought I would have a hard life as a painter. My father thought the highest thing a person could be was an architect. Below that was a painter. So he thought it was much better than being, say, a doctor.

I know people can be a little nervous about swimsuits, but have some fun with it. Believe you can hold it down. If you believe you can hold it down, you can wear it.

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.

The abstract expressionists had that thing of, subject matter becomes content, content becomes form. And I always thought there was no room for style. I felt with my painting, the style really is the content. The style holds everything together.

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

I use the iPhone now for information. But with selfies, I don't know what those people are doing. It's like they believe what they see is real, even with the [filters]. And God bless them! But to me, it's not a self-portrait, it's a reality project.

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