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.

I got in before SoHo was SoHo. It was just Little Italy when I was in there. It's still off the touristy track. It's just away from the Saturday action, the crowds and everything. It's too expensive. It's insane. You've got to be a billionaire to live on Manhattan now.

I create by feeling rather than by intellectualizing.

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

I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.

I lost my daughter at 21. I had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her. That was very traumatic.

I've looked at life from both sides now...from win and lose, and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all.