You realize yourself when you start reflecting - because I don't live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are - that you can't ignore it. But I don't look at scrapbooks.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We're all struggling to get out of the past. We see something that reminds us of something, and then we bring our baggage into the present. Then we project it onto people constantly.
We all carry our past. But it is a case of getting on with your life and improving it, if you want to.
I don't live in the past at all; I'm always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.
I keep my scrapbooks in the car. When I come to a stoplight, I start looking through my past. Sometimes I wish the red lights were longer.
People sometimes think that I bring home all these old books because I'm addicted, that I'm no better than a hoarder with a houseful of crumbling newspapers.
When you realize the value of all life, you dwell on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.
I can no more reread my own books than I can watch old home movies or look at snapshots of myself as a child. I wind up sitting on the floor, paralyzed by grief and nostalgia.
Basically everything I've done in art, I was in possession of when I was 20 years old. I use a waste retrieval method of working. I'll go back and use something that disgusted me 15 years ago but that I had enough sense to think about. Some artists change dramatically. I see my work more like history being written.
When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.
I see my albums as working diaries, as living scrapbooks of me and my life.