You'd have to think that you're at least decent, or you couldn't get up every morning and do it. I think if I live long enough, I might be pretty good.
It was taunted as reality. It was dangled as a carrot. In terms of people's hopes and dreams, to say that that is less of a reality than the daily grind they find themselves in is maybe not correct.
I think there are a lot of pictures to make. I sometimes question whether I'm even an artist or just a painter. To me, the making of the pictures is the most important thing.
I never stopped making pictures. There were times when more of my income was coming from other sources, and I had to devote more time to television and movies and records.
I kind of just lucked into and fell into the other profession. It was really just an outgrowth of the fact that when I was in art school, I had no money whatsoever.
I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.
I don't think you really can send an exact message, because any two viewers are so disparate, in terms of their backgrounds, their point of view, their histories, that there's no telling what that message might be.
I try to not get to the point where one is making wallpaper, or simply painting money. I want to make sure that I am at least trying to weigh myself down, that there's a challenge each time.
Some of the pictures I must say every now and then I just think are going to be funny. When it gets that much, you might as well just pull out all the stops and make it more of a burlesque.
