Working a model liberated me from ever having to hold a day job. I transitioned from doing that to working full-time as an artist. If you're 19 and living cheap, being an artist model can sustain you. I dropped out of college at 21 and my illustration hadn't yet taken off. It is more than working in a store. It is a hard way to make a living but you earn more than in a similarly unskilled job.

Art is for the elite because it has a very high price-point of entry. And when one is in that social strata, they look down at illustrators because they just draw things directly for a few hundred dollars and that's seen as being a bit grubby. Galleries allow artists to stay relatively divorced from the financial aspects of their trade. I am lucky because I do fine art, and that is half of my living. And then illustration provides the other half.

But the thing about proving things? Your jaggedness just goads you on – it makes you sharper and harder. It gives you swagger.

When virtue was spoken of in the classical sense, for men, it always meant bravery or protecting others or being an adventurer and going out into the world - whereas a woman's virtue meant keeping her legs closed.

The truth is, the vast majority of medical care for lower income people in America is shitty. If you go to a free clinic to receive any form of care, the majority of those will be overcrowded with nurses who are tired because they have to work with so many people. We are not a country that invests public money into taking care of poor people, so we usually rely on clinics with very overburdened and underpaid staff.

When I started my own business, I funded it as a naked model. I still think that the sex industry can, for some men and women, be a powerful tool for improving their financial prospects.

Rejection is inevitable. Let it hit you hard for a moment, feel the hurt, and then move on.