It was probably one of the things that gave me a sense of possibility and allowed for me to see beyond the small community that I existed within. You know, I was making friends with young Soviet kids. this is during perestroika. You know, there's bread lines and vodka lines. The entire social structure of what was then the Soviet Union was radically different from what we know today.

Mel Bochner was able to give me the tools to look at those types of experiences, register them with my own, but also hold them far enough away to see them 360.

I had an amazing instructor, Joseph Gotto , who, as a painter, spoke to me as it - he didn't condescend.

I have been painting white people for much longer in my life than I have done for colored people.

I think that one of the questions that I asked of myself in later years was to this point of the political directive.

What's interesting about my project recently is that I'm going out into broader global spaces but then isolating at the same time - sort of pushing out but then pulling in.

Like commercial stuff is sort of cheap and disposable and fun and can be sort of interesting in many ways. I love being in popular culture and existing in the evolution of popular culture. But it's so different from painting, and it's so different from that sort of slow, contemplative, gradual process that painting is.