But if I did read, say, [Maurice] Merleau-Ponty, for instance, it always seemed to me that the parts that I understood in what he was talking about - and I read him because - well, he wrote a book, well, the Phenomenology of Perception [New York: Humanities Press, 1962]. And it seemed to me that perception had a lot do with how we take in art.

I just try things and whether people like it or if I find it successful or not, I just do it.

I have been in competitions for commissions. I've won most and lost some. Mostly, I've won.

By being critical, you also develop your own style of what you like, what direction you want to move.

People who look at art don't really - don't go with the artist. They don't sort of accept what he or she has done and kind of go with it. There are always - either there's too much color or not enough color, either it's not conceptual enough or it's too conceptual. In other words, most criticism isn't what the viewer expected that it would do based on what they think you have done and that's good as far as I'm concerned.

Normally my head is always filled with art ideas and things that I have to do, deadlines that I have to meet.

Words are objects of a color and a size and a form and a shape.