An artist fights to retain the integrity of a work so that it remains a strong, clear vision. Art is and should be the act of an individual willing to say something new, something not quite familiar.

You couldn't put me in a social group setting. I'm probably a terrible anarchist deep down.

To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom.

I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode. Interest in the land and concern about how we are polluting the air and water of the planet are what make me want to travel back in geologic time-to witness the shaping of the earth before man.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.

I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.

My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar.