I've always found paintings of nudes depressing because they can't compete with photographs. The grainiest photograph of some girl, a blurry Polaroid - you'd rather look at that than the Venus de Milo, because you think, Wow, that's really somebody... This camera really was in front of this real naked lady.

When I went to college, and I went to art school, I started to realize that Warhol was cool and that pop art was fun.

Just don't do things that depress you. I realized if it depresses me, then I just don't want to get close to it. If it brings me down, I just really can't get into it.

That was an important development for me, just realizing that you need to follow your pleasure, at least as a painter. I think any kind of artist needs to, no matter what you're doing.

You have to like everything that you're painting. Maybe on a narrative level it seems harsh... but I like everything in all my paintings. It's as if you need to be less intelligent at that level.

I'd like to get the sex thing over with, but I realized I'm not done with it. You should never will a change in your work - you have to work an idea to death. I often find that the best things happen when you're near the end.

A lot of the acting students would do modeling in the arts school, so there were some gorgeous girls, but the cliché in our school was to get either the really emaciated person or the really obese person - which is stupid.