Sometimes the mere connection we make with each other can change people's lives. It doesn't have to be something big. The mere fact that you're interested in them makes them happy.

You get closer to your own humanity by understanding the stories of other people and the struggles they have.

I started to paint in the year 2000. I never thought of going to an art school, even though I loved art.

You have to experiment with different mediums and things around you [making art].

Even though I'm not privileged in the money world, I'm privileged in other ways: I had greater access to education, I can travel, etc. It's the same with writing: the freedom to move in and out of different places, of different realms of existence, of different life forms.

Art is really about how you capture different things you see around you and bring them into forms and words and shapes and meaning.

Some people have witnessed the killing of their husbands, or they survived other horrific things. My sister is a widow but her husband was killed after the Khmer Rouge. There are different periods in which violence has occurred, and differences in how these women became widowed and how they survived afterwards.