I want[ed] to make a show of really big pictures, because you see male artists doing it all the time. It just seemed like such a big egotistical thing. I thought, 'I don't know that many women that really do that.... Damn it, I'm gonna do that-make this really big picture.'

I don't analyze what I'm doing. I've read convincing interpretations of my work, and sometimes I've noticed something that I wasn't aware of, but I think, at this point, people read into my work out of habit. Or I'm just very, very smart.

The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.

When I do work, I get so much done in such a concentrated time that once I’m through a series, I’m so drained I don’t want to get near the camera.

My message for people to not take anything for granted, to respect what they might not understand.

Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.

So many things suddenly made sense for the clowns, for the whole idea. I’d been going through a struggle, particularly after 9/11; I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. I still wanted the work to be the same kind of mixture – intense, with a nasty side or an ugly side, but also with a real pathos about the characters – and clowns have an underlying sense of sadness while they’re trying to cheer people up. Clowns are sad, but they’re also psychotically, hysterically happy.