If I were to give myself a pat on the back, it would be for sticking with bookmaking as my primary way of expressing myself over the span of fifty years.

I've tried to use the recognition as validation that I'm doing the kind of work that people are interested in and to feel that my work is a contribution.

There's probably more of a struggle to get material and narratives published that really speak to black culture. And that has a lot to do with the mergers and buyouts and the corporations being more in control of the purse strings. We find that the projects have to come with higher expectations rather than books that just should be published. That's disturbing because we might find fewer and fewer children's books by African Americans or with black cultural themes.

I'm often in conversations with people who have learning disabilities, and they talk about how they were teased and perhaps laughed at sometimes as children. That was never the case with me. Maybe it was something about my personality, my temperament, but I don't ever remember being teased. I remember the awkwardness of leaving class to go to a special class, but that's all.

I never demonstrate how art should be made or what the outcome should look like. Instead, give kids the tools and the materials to make their own art. Have them experience the process.

A sense of community has always been important to me. I understood very early that I could not grow as an artist or as a person without being connected to institutions and clients that served the community.

I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans.