You know, I'm incredibly blessed to be able to have this level of choice as an artist today. In this economy, it's something that I, you know, pinch myself at constantly, just thinking about how I could wake up tomorrow and decide I'm going to start painting this or that. So it's good.

I think one of the things that I took from Mel [Bochner] specifically was his ability to look at oneself and one's relationship to the history of art and the practice of art at arm's length, the ability to sort of clinically and coldly remove oneself from the picture and to see it simply as a set of rules, habits, systems, moving parts.

I studied shades, textures by painting after the Old Masters, the classical European paintings, as part of my educational process.

How does the artist function as poet-slash-witness-slash-trickster?

One of my most strong memories was studying with Mel Bochner, one of the, I think, high water marks of American conceptual art.

When you're at your best, you're analyzing yourself and becoming increasingly isolated from a broader narrative.

You'll find that street casting in America is a lot different than street casting in different nations.