When I moved to New York, I was still in the closet.

I was voted most artistic in school.

Just being friends with people now for over 15 years, you realize what we all came out of. What we came out of was the intense feeling of growing up. It sounds kind of cliché, but it's true.

I have a really big family, and pretty much all my work is about my brothers and sisters. I'm the youngest of eight - my mom had seven kids in seven years, and then she had me 11 years later - so I was basically raised by all these teenagers.

There was no luxury. I never got on an airplane until I was 18. We drove everywhere. My dad was like, "Waste not, want not."

All my work, really, is based on my brothers and sisters. I had so many adventures with them and a big part of the work is to recreate those. It's easy for me to be around a lot of people, because I can retreat. I can watch everything.

Actually, I didn't study photography at first. I went to school for painting my first year, poetry my second year, graphic design my third and fourth year, and photography my fifth.