I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.

Neurologically, I'm a quadriplegic, so virtually everything about my work has been driven by my learning disabilities, which are quite severe, and my lack of facial recognition, which I'm sure is what drove me to paint portraits in the first place.

Sometimes I really want to paint somebody and I don't get a photograph that I want to work from.

In the 7th grade, I made a 20-foot long mural of the Lewis and Clark Trail while we were studying that in history because I knew I wasn't going to be able to spit back the names and the dates and all that stuff on a test.

There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.

I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.

Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.