When you come up in the art world, whatever's in the air, the issues of the moment, end up becoming part of the working method or modus operandi of how you think about doing a painting. And I came up at a time when-actually painting was dead when I came up. Sculpture sort of ruled.

Of course there are all the negative reviews, which also are incredibly important. Hilton Kramer hated the work, and if he had loved it I would have wanted to commit suicide. I still remember to this day that he called me a lunatic and he said the work is the kind of trash that washed ashore when the tide of pop art went out... and I thought, Gee, if he doesn't like what I'm doing, then I must be on the right track.

We were all figuring out ways to build an image rather than paint it. Sculptors didn't want to work in bronze or marble or wax. They wanted to find a material that didn't have any art use. We were similarly trying to find ways of working that were not about paint-it-in, paint-it-out, scrape-it-off -- some way of working all over at once.

I became tired of submitting my art to a panel of corporate strategists who decide if it meets their standard of what gets into stores or not. It was quite simple for me: they act like judge and jury of my art, and that is unacceptable. I wanted to give it right to the public.

There's a kind of prevailing sensibility in any given moment in time, so sometimes the art world gravitates away from your issues, and then sometimes it will come back towards them.

My parents were both very supportive of the idea of my being an artist. I had trouble in school, and I think they wanted me to feel good about myself and feel special, so when I exhibited interest in magic, they would help me do magic shows, and puppets, and also they got me private art instruction when I was about 8.

Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.

You can actually take your pain and processes it into some kind of form of art. So I mean, I've easily always been able to do that, but also I've always been able to give myself perspective - or, you know, older people always give you perspective.