I'm used to being the background. I'm used to having work that only lasts for a little while. I'm used to being - working in the real world, where real things are.

I took art courses, only in the sense that I was able to - I took art classes, which were fun, which I liked, but it was a - just a kind of a general education that I got, a regular academic - academic diploma, but I kind of had the feeling that art was something that I really liked the most but I wasn't really sure that that was it.

I went to Our Lady of Mercy, parochial school and I started Fordham Prep, but that only lasted about a year and then I - to me, it was like going to some kind of concentration camp. I was not very happy. And I only went there because that's where my brother went, really.

I'm not a person - and my wife also - we don't really go to the beach or anything like that. We go to cities.

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.

The notion of a thing, materiality, was something that I think was something very in peoples' minds when they were dealing with earth and metal and different kinds of metals and the interaction of different sorts of material.

I'm always looking for relations between my work and the old masters.