I'm interested in that way we perceive things, and that was part of what I was getting into in painting - the idea of perception and how information goes through our heads and it comes out another way.

I was studying sculpture and painting and was working on a degree so I could become a teacher. I really liked teaching, and it was something I was pursuing when I got out of school.

When you're born with a tail, you learn to go through doors fast.

With abstract work, I never was quite sure what it was that felt right about the painting, but I did know that I responded to it and I liked whatever it was offering me. That's something that seems to happen as well when I'm writing, where maybe things that don't necessarily make a lot of logical sense are put together, and yet we struggle to make sense of these things somehow. I'm not quite sure why that is; it's something about human nature, I guess.

That's something that seems to happen when I'm writing, where maybe things that don't necessarily make a lot of logical sense are put together, and yet we struggle to make sense of these things somehow. I'm not quite sure why that is; it's something about human nature, I guess.

I had a Masters of Fine Arts, but so did thousands of other graduates every year, and we were all competing for the same jobs. I realistically didn't expect to become a teacher, and after two or three years, I accepted defeat.

If I had a normal life Id quite cheerfully go mad and fall over right now