‘The only way to be a painter is to make paintings. That means not doing other stuff.’

A book I love

My favorite book is The Three-Cornered World, by Natsume Sōseki, published in 1906. It’s a novel about an artist who goes on a retreat up a mountain to a little inn, where he falls in love with the inn-keeper’s daughter. The story is propelled by a series of sensory experiences he is immersed in—it's essentially a word-painting about... See more

I spent a period of time where my goal was to plow through work in the cheapest and most disposable way possible. My choice was cardboard—sheets of corrugated cardboard from the streets of Manhattan.

I’d haul it up to my studio in big bundles every day, and put it all over the walls, the floor—even on the ceiling—and make imagery on it. At the end... See more

If you’re afraid to go just that bit little farther and fuck the whole thing up, then you’re in trouble. You’re painting with one hand tied behind your back.

There is no upside to a fear of failure.

If your intention is to ‘make art’, then maybe you’ll get a couple of good paintings. You may even get a show or two.

But I think of it this way: I don’t make art. I make things . Framing it like that keeps what I’m doing from becoming precious. And that’s a good thing, because to be precious is to be... See more

I leave those piles there: it's both a symbolic and a practical reminder that this work is fraught with mistakes and errors. It's also a reminder that painting, and all art, is a lie.

There’s a reason the first letters of the word ‘artificial’ are ‘art’. Human beings crave deception—we need to see each other’s narratives. We make art so that we have... See more

When I buy a new paint brush, the first thing I do is break it into halves. A brush is not a sacred implement that makes precious marks, it is an extension of my fist. Anything precious is self-conscious, and that kills creativity. I spill everything out and fix it later. I disrespect my tools but I respect what they do. I never want to lose the... See more

When I get blocked in my work, I just quit.

I used to think that the best thing to do when experiencing a painting block was to put my head down and try to push straight through.

Now I try to think of the word ‘block’ from a different angle. A colon gets blocked; an artist has dry spells. A dry spell is a good sign: it means you’re working. The only... See more

I wanted to show the ins and outs, and the unglamorous underbelly of this life. I have made it, I've done well, I continue to do well, and it's OK to say that. But it takes a lot of discipline, a lot of hard work, and luck, and I wanted to show that part of it too—in order to tell people that this is possible.