I don't have a dream project. I don't really think in those terms, to tell you the truth.

The idea of, say, the compressed space between the floor and the object hanging over it and then the long space between the object and the ceiling was a kind of interesting idea for me - the idea of compressing and expanding. That was an idea that I worked with, which you could only do sculpturally. You can't really do with a painting on the wall.

I do make some drawings for wall pieces. I do work out some ideas for large-scale wall pieces where I have to organize words or get proportions right. I do keep them in my files. Not an exhibit or a show; just as part of my records, my archives.

People ask me why I use words and the reason, of course, is that words talk to you. I mean, they're something that are generated inside of you and that you can relate to you.

I mean, part of the justification for art is art history, the fact that you're part of this tradition. You can't really operate outside of it. So looking for what this work is really about, if I look at Velázquez, if I look at Las Meninas or The Tapestry Weavers [1657] or something and really study it and try to figure out what that painting is really about, then I find relationships between what I'm trying to do and what he was doing.

I always took photographs. I photographed a lot of trees, by the way, which is another image I used often in my work, the tree image.

I make my own surprises and I'm always surprised to see what I do, to see it when it's finished and the biggest challenge is once I finish it, it's not a failure. It's not a flop.