If you come every day or every month to my studio, you won't see that much change, but if you come once a year, you'll see big new categories opened up.

I had a visit from an artist friend who basically said, "Your paintings are wonderful. Now stop." It did resonate with me. It hit on the percolating need for change that was already there. I got a little push. I did a group of the paintings early on that were among the best. It was sort of beginner's luck with these.

The world of painting has nothing to do with the art world.

Most people draw from the mind, not the eye. They draw the idea of a table or a face, not what's in front of them. We don't actually see the line of the jaw as a line and we don't see an eye as a perfectly outlined almond shape.

All my siblings became artists. One's a novelist, my brother is a painter, my sister was a costume designer.

I've been playing piano my whole life, but I'd never tried to understand how compositions are made, really. Try to imagine if you'd loved paintings your whole life but had never painted one. My aspiration now is just to understand.

It's not until the very last phase that you know how good the works are going to be.