I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.

I don't see why we ever think of what others think of what we do – no matter who they are. Isn't it enough just to express yourself?

I've been afraid every single day of my life, but I've gone ahead and done it anyway.

The clean clear colours were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty, I thought 'I can paint one of those dismal-coloured paintings like the men. I think just for fun I will try - all low-toned and dreary with the tree besides the door.' In my next show, 'The Shanty' went up. The men seemed to approve of it. They seemed to think that maybe I was beginning to paint. That was my only low-toned dismal-coloured painting.

I got half-a-dozen paintings from that shattered plate.

I have painted portraits that to me are almost photographic. I remember hesitating to show the paintings, they looked so real to me. But they have passed into the world as abstractions - no one seeing what they are.

I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.