And after a while, you just pare things down more and more and more, until you get to certain basic things which just - basic ideas which just seem to work for you over and over again.

Heidegger wrote a book called Was Ist Das Ding - What Is a Thing? which was kind of interesting and influential to me, as a matter of fact. It's a small paperback, which I read. It's about the nature of thingness; what is it? It's a very penetrating analysis of that, and I think a rather influential book. I know other artists who have read it and come up with it.

I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.

There's a kind of poetic aspect to inert gas. And remember, first of all, they were completely unknown a hundred years earlier. We just didn't know about them. And then when they were discovered in the atmosphere, the idea that this is a material that would breathe in and exhale and becomes part of us for a while made it even more intriguing. The names, the Greek names, are interesting, too - if you translate neon, xenon and so forth are kind of interesting.

I am an artist who works very well under pressure, in fact. I like to have deadlines.

ne thing you have to develop as an artist is a confidence in what you're doing and that you're right about it.

If you are operating in a certain way and you are thinking in a certain direction, suddenly opportunities arise. And if you are open to it, if you are not locked into your style too much or to what you think works.