I'm in this process of trying to create a free space. Like an open field, where figure and ground are in very ambivalent, complex relationships. On top of that, I also wanted to see if I could try to blurt something out, or make something completely immediate, that ends up fitting perfectly.

In my work, we're not looking at an icon, we're not looking at a sign, we're not looking at a representation. We're looking at something. I do have this feeling of trust that people can read it for themselves.

It's more this instinct to get in trouble, and then get myself out of trouble. That's what painting is for me.

Every painting I've ever done has like 100 paintings under it.

Who would be an artist that was perfectly happy? Maybe nowadays, but when I grew up in the '60s, you had nobody in the art club who was popular. No cheerleaders in the art club. I was told that I couldn't be a painter by my first painting teacher. I said I wanted to go to Cooper and be an art student, and he said, "You'll be a waitress." It was really the strangely indifferent parenting.

Being bad. Discomfort with your body. Bad self image. All those things turn you into an artist. The same things that keep you from being in a proper marriage.

That’s the huge problem with an abstract painting. When are you done? You’re done when you don’t want to do it anymore.