When I went to Africa I think that was when I really found a way to deal with what I had recently discovered; in two-dimensional terms, at least.

I was never interested in making cool, distilled, pure objects.

At a certain point, I just put the building and the art impulse together. I decided that building was a legitimate way to make sculpture.

The most precise work is generally done by hand, with hand tools. Some people rely on machines for their precision, and my way of working is backwards. I rely on the machines for doing the gross stock removal and then, when it comes to the final refinements and fitting of joints and things, making things work together, I rely more on sharp-edged tools that I push by hand.

There remains this belief that the work itself can have an identity that can speak, whether it's through beauty, or through ugliness, or whatever quality you put into the work. The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you to say things about life today.

When I went to Africa I think that was when I really found a way to deal with what I had recently discovered; in two-dimensional terms, at least.

I realized it wasn't necessary to work in the traditional methods of carving and casting.