Credentials have been a problem for a long time in my work. Originality has been my strength, and credentials and academia have not been.

My paintings and sculptures, at first glance, may appear to be purely aesthetic; closer up, they are not. They hold a feeling of tentativeness, combined with a sense of arrival.

A work of art enters life very much like another human being - complicated, loaded with overtones and meaning, mysterious, enticing, obsessive, and beautiful. There's no way to control how it will be used, how it will be read, and that's part of the excitement of it.

Credentials have been a problem for a long time in my work. Originality has been my strength, and credentials and academia have not been.