I look at my work and make up my mind about it. After that, neither flattery nor criticism matters to me.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.

I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.

I took back a barrel of bones to New York. They were my symbols of the desert, but nothing more. I haven't seen enough to think of any other symbolism. The skulls were there and I could say something with them.

I realized that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught - not like what I had seen - shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own.

Marks on paper are free - free speech - press - pictures all go together I suppose.