Basically, at this time, I viewed any work of art as an imposition of another person's taste and saw the individual making this imposition as a kind of dictator.

When somebody says that all statements are false, the obvious problem is that as an assertion it's self-defeating.

At the same time, I was listening to black music, and I began to think that the best musicians were receiving the worst treatment. The people who were doing the greatest work were despised as lower class, with no dignity accorded to what they did.

I began composing works which were imitative of the music I was being told about. I was also very interested in translating the music into visual terms.

I'm actually a great fan of lucidity.

In classical oil painting, there seemed to be a radical turn to seeing things as the camera sees them, with that technological modification. I began to have a tremendous problem with all of this.

When I came to New York, I began to meet the people who became the most famous artists of our time. I was insecure about my own level of ability, I didn't know whether I could compete with these people and, at the same time. I was wondering what is this anyway?