A lot of good and regular art gets made because of who you talk to. No one is immune to human contact and art is not made in a vacuum.
Don't listen to the fools who say that pictures of people can be of no consequence, or that painting is dead. There is much to be done.
I carry themes in my mind for years before I will try to compose them. I've got themes that will last me now 'til I die.
My pictures had and have secret lives, and so there were things I did not tell, a lot of stuff I did not say back then which I'm saying now... I intend to continue allowing forms of secret life to paintings I'm working on right now because it excites me to do that.