I went back to the Art Institute, then spent the summer at the Ox-Bow School in Saugatuck, Michigan. That's what really awakened me. I made a lot of oil paintings and my first performance.

Chicago has a strange metaphysical elegance of death about it.

For a thorough use of ice cream cones, buy two; eat one and drop the other.

Everything I do is completely original-I made it up when I was a kid.

I am for an art of things lost or thrown away. . . I am for an art that one smokes like a cigarette. . . I am for an art that flutters like a flag.

My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn't copying; I was remaking them as my own.

I was always interested in drawing. As a child, I started my own country, which was called Neubern. It was located in the South Atlantic. I did the documentation of Neubern in great detail. I drew everything that was there, all the houses and all the cars and all the people. We even had a navy and an air force. I spent a lot of time drawing.