It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
If it looks like art, chances are it's somebody else's art.
I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.
At the same time that I'm finding the color world I want, I'm also trying to make the imagery, you know, by the nature of the strokes themselves.
I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.
Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.
I think I was driven to paint portraits to commit images of friends and family to memory. I have face blindness, and once a face is flattened out, I can remember it better.
The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down.
Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work.
I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another.In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.
I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.
I love sculpture, and minimal sculpture is really my favorite stuff, but I wasn't very good at it, and I don't think in a three-dimensional way.
I only use three primaries, so the nice thing is I can't have favorite colors.
I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.
There are so many artists that are dyslexic or learning disabled, it's just phenomenal. There's also an unbelievably high proportion of artists who are left-handed, and a high correlation between left-handedness and learning disabilities.
After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously.
I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.
All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.
What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.
Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.
I think women realise that I love women, and very often women seem to love me.
I'm poor white trash from the state of Washington.
