I paint life as I would like it to be.

Right from the beginning, I always strived to capture everything I saw as completely as possible.

How will I be remembered? As a technician or artist? As a humorist or a visionary?

I just wanted to do something important.

Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life, but I haven't been around that long. Not quite.

Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I am a story teller.

The view of life I communicate in my pictures excludes the sordid and ugly. I paint life as I would like it to be.