There was an expression of intensity in dance that was so compelling to me that I wanted a piece of that action.

I think great art goes beyond the control of the artist. In some ways, art often makes itself and reveals things about that artist that maybe the artist is not fully conscious of.

I remember seeing a photograph of myself en pointe with my hand over my head and the other hand turned in under my breast curtseying. I took dance lessons at Miss Debbie's Dance Studio, and she put this picture of me in the storefront window. I was so unbelievably humiliated by the sight of myself.

It's easy to attack an artist as misogynist, but that's really such a facile epithet. And if an artist is constantly worrying about how others will judge a work, it can end up being a block to investigating certain areas of human nature or certain truths about sexuality.

Sometimes audiences love you because they get to boo you.

You always feel very vulnerable when you put your work out there. You feel a kind of nakedness. And you expose something of the inner workings of the way you experience life.

I wanted to paint pictures of people. I thought, "Why bother doing anything else. Everything else is a waste of time. I want to tell stories about people and their feelings and emotions."