And the part about being a professional artist is that you can tell, and you can do it over again, even if you can't say how you got there exactly.

I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.

And then what makes the work interesting is if you choose the right questions.

In the studio, I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting plaster or whatever.

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a wall. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat.

I like to combine different aspects in my work, to cover different areas, but I do see them as being separate.

What is it that an artist does when he is left alone in his studio? My conclusion was that if I was an artist and I was in the studio, then everything I was doing in the studio should be art . . . . From that point on, art became more of an activity and less of a product.

Did you stop because it was good enough, or could have done more - but then maybe ruined it too? Sometimes you finish because you've gone too far.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

In art, the only one who really knows whether what you've done is honest is the artist.

I want to be in the studio. I want to be doing something. You just do whatever is at hand, and you don't even worry about whether it's going to be interesting or not interesting to anybody else-or even yourself. You just have to make something.

The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.

I like to use my hands and make things... It might seem pretty stupid or pointless but that doesn't matter... some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that - out of a raw need for activity.

I don't like to think about being an influence. It's embarrassing.

I'll talk. You'll listen.

Generalised anger and frustration is something that gets you in the studio, and gets you to work - though it's not necessarily evident in anything that's finished.