One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.

Most of the power of painting comes through the manipulation of space... but I don't understand that.

A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.

I'm not looking for images, They just appear and take on an interest. Sometimes you look at a thing and it has no interest and then you see it in a different way and it has another meaning. Or something that was of no use will become useful.

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye.

There was very little art in my childhood. I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.

There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists.