If you really want to seriously think about life, and therefore take painting very seriously... and take seriously the joys that it can bring to one, then you want to go to museums. You want to study the great of the past.

Dramatic use of color, harmonious design, the interplay of light and shadow across a variety of textures, the portrayal of the figure and other subject matter that reflects the sophistication and beauty I find in nature - all presented from a unique point of view - can only be successfully achieved with a sound command of the painter's craft... history will determine how successful I have been.

My career doesn't depend on painting Bill Clinton.

If you really want to seriously think about life, and therefore take painting very seriously... and take seriously the joys that it can bring to one, then you want to go to museums. You want to study the great of the past.

We... joked a little about presidential portraits. He [Bill Clinton] told me that he and Harrison Ford had been joking recently about how chins drop with age, and he didn't want to look that way.

I almost never do drawings, because I have found over the years that doing something in one medium and translating into another doesn't work. I like to conceive a painting in real scale and in color.

It's not just a boring exercise in pushing oil paint around a canvas. It's a way of opening a threshold to an exciting new world of vision.