I found that I wanted to be best friends with almost all the women I interviewed because they had been through something. They were closing in on the circle of their journey and they had a kind of wisdom that comes from their long life.

I very strongly believe that if you go back to your roots, if you mine that inner territory, you can bring out something that is indelibly you and authentic - like your thumbprint. It's going to have your style because there is no one like you.

I think of my work as very polarizing; either people really do like it and are touched by it or they really don't get it at all. It's not accessible to all people at the same level.

Have the utmost respect for your subjects. Love them.

I have the same themes over and over again. How I'm saying it keeps changing or growing.

My whole artistic life has been devoted to battling myself and my ability to externalize my deepest emotions. As I have gotten older, the work has become more direct, perhaps reflecting the fact that for the first time in my life I feel really free. I have been fascinated with wings all my life. I have had an obsession with transcendence, the need to push forward and metaphorically fly.

I would never censor something to please someone. I don't play games.