On the contrary, my desire is that the viewer sees the background coming forward in the lower portion of the canvas, fighting for space, demanding presence.

I think there's something important in going against the grain, and perhaps finding value in things that aren't necessarily institutionally recognized.

This is something that, as artists, we constantly deal with-throwing away the past, slaying the father, and creating the new. This desire to throw away the old rules.

The backgrounds by design are a very key part of the conversation, because I want a kind of fight or pressure to exist between the figure and the background.

All art is self-portraiture.

Painting is situational. And my particular situation exists within gender, race, class, sexuality, nation.

I believe that artists should be part of the culture. I think that my work clearly bears that out.

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about or even looking at.

We have a lot of sort of received historical ways of viewing portraiture. And I suppose in some way I'm sort of questioning that by toying with the rules of the game.

We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's just sort of in our DNA. And so portraiture is a very human act.

I guess art is in the eye of the beholder.

Ask very little but ask of everyone.

In heaven . . . the “communication gap” will be closed.

I don't think my wife likes me very much, when I had a heart attack she wrote for an ambulance.

The more articulate somebody is, the more suspicious I am of them. I like to feel that the important things remain unsaid.

Like any kind of writing, there are good days and frustrating days. But even frustrating days can be rewarding sometimes.

Large-scale hog producers are a greater threat to the United States and U.S. democracy than Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.

I have fallen, I have sunk so low. I have messed up, better I should know.

A bank book makes good reading - better than some novels.

And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward, I tell you-- it's born with us the day that we are born.

IT'S OUR AMERICA - DO SOMETHING TO PRESERVE ITS' BEAUTY STRENGTH, AND NATURAL WEALTH