"I find ... humanity in art very appealing because it just cuts away all the layers of academia. Scholarship can buoy understanding in some ways but after a point can also drag you down, away from the art."
"So much of my work is about doing the very obvious. Making art is like finding your Excalibur, the sword in the stone. It's right there and others can tug and tug, but you have to be Arthur to pull it out."
"I think one important thing that happens in the studio is accepting yourself as the enemy and painting from that point of view. So instead of pointing the finger outward and passing judgement, instead, you start with yourself as your own worst enemy."
"Since contemporary artists are not hired by, say, the Vatican, we have the freedom to ask ourselves what we believe in and then to assert that belief. It's actually a powerful liberty to own, and especially nice in our time when there are so many women's voices in the mix."
"I wanted to paint pictures of people. I thought, 'Why bother doing anything else. Everything else is a waste of time.' I want to tell stories about people and their feelings and emotions."
"Sometimes audiences love you because they get to boo you."
"I remember seeing a photograph of myself en pointe with my hand over my head and the other hand turned in under my breast curtseying. I took dance lessons at Miss Debbie's Dance Studio, and she put this picture of me in the storefront window. I was so unbelievably humiliated at the sight of myself."
"I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library, the main branch. I was one of those people. If you ever spend a good amount of time there, you realize there are people who spend the entire day there. They're bookish homeless people."
"Misogyny is so rampant, extreme and insidious that it doesn't get called out nearly enough. A lot of men, including gay men, are misogynists, and a lot of women are too. I've experienced it personally from so many, and I can therefore assume that because I live in this society I must have absorbed it too, so if I want to talk about misogyny I have to first acknowledge the aspects of it I've absorbed."
"I often wish I could go to my studio and paint all the time, but I can't. I often feel disconnected, as if I'm waiting for instructions. It's absolute torture. The first third of the time it took to make these recent paintings was spent going in every day but ending up with nothing. Then, slowly, something started to happen."
