For me becoming a painter was an Everest, in terms of what I thought a painter was. There are many roads to becoming an artist. For me it wasn't art school. I didn't have that go to art school and then get a gallery. It's more like, how deep is your inner library to cull from. It's certainly not about technical prowess, just about depth of investigation. It takes time. I had 15 years of painting under my belt before my first New York show. I was glad to have that. It's a good thing to spend your twenties getting your craft.

I was never exposed to art school. I grew up in an artist's studio. I was exposed a lot of studio time between of my father and a great painter I studied with in Barcelona. That was my art school, as Europe was.

Most days, I practice piano in the mornings and I spend the rest of the day painting.

I think I was very lucky to have grown up with an artist's studio in the house. It was a kind of life that was possible. Yeah, it made it kind of harder because the standards were higher, but there was no pressure.

When I have a creative block, I take walks. I like to see what shapes stick out - so many legs rushing by at once, it can seem abstract. I don't need to see great art to get stirred up. Music does that for me more easily.

I'm not such an artist type that I can't handle the real world. I read the financial pages, because most people don't talk about art.

Everyone accepts the abstraction of Bach. My work aspires to the same kind of abstraction, which is so engaging that you're distracted from asking about what it means. So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category. Once it's in the viewer's eyes my job will be judged on whether or not it is engaging and pulls you in to a kind of intelligence or poetic something going on there that makes it sustainable to look at.