It was about the preciousness of that, and how they viewed those birds as art, as something valuable. I didn't care one way or another back then, but now, thinking about my grandparents - who are still alive but getting older - I see the birds as sort of time capsules. Now I go home during the holidays and they hold a lot of weight in terms of nostalgia and memory. Now they mean everything.

A is for Answering all your prayers, N is for kNowing that your loverman's going to be the answer.

We as visual artists need to continue to be renegades and say, "Yes I am here to do a project, but what is the social service?"

I think I have always had a pretty strong creative impulse. And that has probably saved me from abandoning myself completely.

The older I get, the more I feel those kinds of ghosts - especially the women in my life - moving out of the shadows a bit more and becoming more present in my life.

But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .

At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.