Fame never interested me. I could have exhibited more of my own works in the 1970s, but I didn't want to. It's sort of like being a child. When you're finished with school, you have only one thing on your mind: to get out and experience life. Did I want to spend all my time working on a painting? No, I wanted to have fun, travel, meet women and live life.

I lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam for a year. It was intense, and it's possible that I even had a few blackouts.

No one ever ordered anything from me. I painted because I wanted to.

The trick is to paint a picture that doesn't exist, and yet that fits perfectly into an artist's body of work.

I went to the flea market in the morning and charged tourists money to take pictures of me. I looked pretty wild, with hair down to my waist, Indian robes, a floor-length fur coat. There must be lots of photos of me out there.

Did I want to spend all my time working on a painting? No, I wanted to have fun, travel, meet women and live life.

I think that the most important requirement is to capture the essence of a piece of art. You look at it, essentially absorb it, and you have to be able to understand it visually without having to think about how it was done. I was already able to do that as a child.