I visited the Museum of Modern Art and viewed the exhibition of Picasso's sculptures, and I couldn't help but think about what it would be like to have a room full of school children explore Picasso's approach to making art.

I do think it's important to expose kids to artists.

If you do the best work you can, the reward is ultimately your self-satisfaction - the sense that you have done the best you can. And then there's that piece of how others respond.

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.

I like to talk about my challenges as they relate to all of us, and I try to leave them with a sense of what it feels like to succeed at something and to arrive at a goal. I talk a lot about finding that thing that you feel is important to you, that's your calling, and about the reward you will get from staying with it, no matter what the challenges are.

Receiving both the Coretta Scott King - Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award suggests I have succeeded, at least in terms of my own goals, in my intent to make art that moves children.

We live in a time when there is an abundance of ways we can express ourselves.