Actually, New York is great for playing around. I made a lot of studies for New York-a big vacuum cleaner lying on the Battery in Manhattan.

I knew I had to take my ambition more seriously, so I enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, in the fall, I went on a tour of my own. I didn't go to New York because that was too well known for its art scene.

I always knew America was all about guns. You go to the movies as a kid, everybody's got a gun.

The end of the '60s was a terrible time. I was in Los Angeles then, and I remember the night someone ran into the studio and told us about the Manson murders. Then suddenly something happened, the '60s disappeared. The '70s were completely different.

I'm in favor of an art that does something other than just sit on its ass in a museum.

When you're working with an object, you can put in almost anything you want, you can make it abstract.

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