I'm free. I just do what I want, say what I want, say how I feel, and I don't try to hurt nobody. I just try to make sure that I don't compromise my art in any kind of way, and I think people respect that.

I think giving is a blind act that should come from a part of me that sees no discrimination (that's why I called it "blind").

I have an apartment in Brooklyn - I guess I call it my shrine. I go there to create and recoup, or hibernate sometimes, but my home is in Dallas where I live with my children.

My second mother is my maternal grandmother. Her name is Thelma. She also gave me a very powerful medicine; she made sure that I knew my role as a young lady and as someone with moral structures and principles. She taught me that if I was going to be involved with anything, whether it be spirituality, music, or some skill, that I have to practice.

I believed in myself, and I've always worked very, very hard as an artist, and I am an artist in every sense of the word.

I don't want to think too much about how I'm carving and what I'm carving - you are just carving away the excess clay and there's a piece underneath there. And it's kind of like getting out of the way. Maybe that's what the commonality is: It's getting out of the way so that the art can speak.

I am not systematic at all when it comes to religion. I just love life. And I'm not judgmental. And I'm a vegetarian.