Art is one of the few places where you can put it in a constructive way where it won't burn you up inside or hurt anyone.

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.

We had collaborated with Allen Ginsberg on one of his last projects just before he died in the spring of '97, a book called Illuminated Poems - it was Allen's poems and songs and I illustrated them. Or, I illuminated them with paintings and drawings that bounced off of them. You want the picture to relate to the text without it slavishly regurgitating it or merely illustrating it, because that's redundant. You want to show another angle of what the text is saying.

Most visual artists, just like most writers, tend to be solitary. While they're doing the art, that is. They may have a crazy orgy that morning, but at a certain point they kick everybody out, and say: "Come, go home. Yeah, I had a great time too." And then you're alone again, and then you're freshly inspired and energized.

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.

Artists always live in the cracks anyway, whatever culture they're in. They're usually accustomed to not having much money, to kind of roughing it.

Illustrators are usually illustrating something big or commercial if not outright advertising. It's a form of prostitution, but that's cool because we don't have any moral hang-up about it.