I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.

Inconsiderate, rude behavior drives me nuts. And I guess the inconsiderate rudeness of social ineptitude definitely fuels my work.

I was supporting myself, but nothing like the guy painters, as I refer to them. I always resented that actually.. we were all getting the same amount of press, but they were going gangbusters with sales.

I wonder how it is that I’m fooling so many people, I’m doing one of the most stupid things in the world…and people seem to be falling for it.

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.

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.'

[My work is] maybe about me maybe not wanting to be me and wanting to be all these other characters. Or at least try them on.