The client isn't quite satisfied and then the prostitute is always unsatisfied but is doing it just to make ends meet. And if you're doing fine art, if you're doing it for a gallery or a museum, it's so sterilized. It's such an antiseptic environment.

What's that Regina Spektor song? Museums are like mausoleums. Having your work in a museum is something we as artists aspire to, but I don't think that's something we need to worry about while we're alive. Typically your work will end up in a museum after you're dead. And maybe that's the function of a museum. It's an archive of your work after you're dead. But while we're alive, I like to see it in places where it's connected to day-to-day life and making a difference.

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."

As I developed as an artist and studied art history, I noticed that all the great works were dealing with the human condition. [Art] had humor in it. It had sex in it. But it also had sorrow running through it.

Art makes people do a double take and then, if they're looking at the picture, maybe they'll read the text under it that says, "Come to Union Square, For Anti-War Meeting Friday." I've been operating that way ever since - that art is a means to an end rather than simply an end in itself. In art school we're always taught that art is an end in itself - art for art's sake, expressing yourself, and that that's enough.

Having your work in a museum is something we as artists aspire to, but I don't think that's something we need to worry about while we're alive.

I think for an artist there are so many things to make pictures of now, that everyone else may be suffering, but at least artists will just be stimulated by it all.