Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication.

I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is. I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

Ox-Bow was a very free place, very open. You could do whatever you wanted to do.

I am an immigrant in a sense. What happened was that my father was stationed in New York when my mother became pregnant, and she said, "I've got to go to Sweden so this child can be born there, because you don't have any idea where you're going to be transferred next."

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

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'm always careful to say that I changed everything I found.