I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there

Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings

All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion…What you see is what you see.

Once I really started to understand Frank Stella's work and follow it, there's a certain type of invention and playfulness and extreme rigor with which he kept going forward.

I never noticed competing with other generations. There's competition within your own generation, but that competition is good. Maybe you're annoyed that somebody's getting more money than you are, but what's really annoying is if someone's painting a better painting than you're making. So it's something to think about and work toward and stay focused on.

When I'm painting the picture, I'm really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don't get any thrill out of laying it out.

Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.