Art grabs people by their eyeballs, it seduces them ... art is a means to an end rather than simply an end in itself.

There's so much tragedy in people that we see every day that we don't have to make anything up. We don't have to invent anything. There are two items on the menu: comedy and tragedy.

The art was just a way of hooking people in, saying: "Hey, maybe there's something cool about the tenant meeting. If the picture's really cool and weird, maybe I should check this out." And I think all of my art has really developed out of that realization.

When Allen Ginsberg was still alive, he was was an artist, but he was very local. He was just another wing-nut in the neighborhood and he was very accessible. You'd see him in Tompkins Square Park or in the local delicatessen, in one of the greasy spoon restaurants on First Avenue or a Chinese restaurant.

Everything you do is political, even if it's abstract. You're making a political statement even if it's unwittingly.

I try to, at least once or twice a week, have someone over and model, usually a dancer friend or a poet or someone to come over and just stay still for me. Depending on how exhibitionist they are, it will determine the finished work. And I say, "You're the muse; you come up with it. I'll draw you however you want."

By the time I was in my early-twenties and was living there on the Lower East Side, I was so surrounded by tragedy that I think that inspired me to try to reflect it in the artwork.