I like my freedom. I like to do my own grocery shopping. People do recognize you. They are kind of shocked. Some people like it. It makes them feel at ease. It confirms their hopes that you are in fact similar to them.

If I'm censoring for anyone, it's for my parents. They are very old-fashioned and moral people. They still don't understand me that well.

Because I'm so busy and because I think of myself as a painter, I desperately guard the time that I have to paint. And sometimes I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.

I wanted to paint in a folk-artist-y way. My heroes were Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Rembrandt. I think Picasso is about as a modern as I got. But I incorporated things that they rejected as well as movements that happened later.

In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy, really, and loss.

I paint my joy and I sing my sorrow.

I assume there must be some kind of genetic thrust. My two grandmothers were very different, but both of them were frustrated musicians.