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

You usually want to get something out of a painting other than the ideas that you had in your head.

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.

Realist painting has to do with leaving out a lot of detail. I think my painting can be a little shocking in all that it leaves out. But what happens is that the mind fills in what's missing . . . Painting is a way of making you see what I saw.

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

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.

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.