A painting, you know, it's all dirty material. But it's about transformation. Taking that earth, that heavy earthen kind of thing, turning it into air and light.

I consider myself lucky to have had wonderful teachers. They expose you to a lot and basically teach you how to paint. I think of my career as a series of lucky incidents.

I smoke pot when I work. I take a couple of tokes before I start. It just loosens you up.

You can't say I'm going to become a painter in the same way you say I'm going to become a dentist. Or maybe you can nowadays. But it's an endeavor.

Holding together a kind of tension. When you see a painting that's really good that's what it's doing.

I'm much more concerned about what artists think. But as you get older you tend to get much more isolated; you're not out in the bar, having long drunken arguments on the benefits of your work vs. someone else's. It's hard to know how people are looking at it, and you don't get much feedback. The written critical stuff seems to be the feedback, but that's hard to interpret.

I've always worn a hat when I work. I think it also comes from a picture of Rothko I saw with a painter's hat on.