Sometimes I'll dream that I saw a show and then I'll wake up in the morning and realize that I didn't see the show, that it was my dream. And I just remember what the paintings look like in the dream and I think, "Oh, nobody painted those. I can do that."

We need to not be scared [of muslim], but understand each other. When you're around these people, you see they have much more in common than their differences.

Can I find a poetic that can be subversive enough to grab people in some subliminal way, to where they feel that they are altered and have had an experience that belonged to them?

If I hung one of my paintings next to someone else's, I knew mine would kind of pop off the wall.

Many people say to me, "I saw [Miral] and it really stayed with me. I woke up the next day and really thought about it, and have been thinking about it for awhile." That was my goal.

It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.

I think it's your own ghost, seeing the work and just thinking if it will be okay to leave that around.