My family runs a little art gallery back in Cornwall, so flashy cars and things like that have never really been particularly interesting to me.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
An interesting thing happened in 1989, right as I was graduating: the stock market crashed and really changed the landscape of the art world in New York. It made the kind of work I was doing interesting to galleries that wouldn't have normally been interested in it.
My father loved antique shops and shows, and quite a bit of my childhood involved outings to dim, dusty places packed with cast-off treasures.
I like the idea that you can paint something outdoors, and anyone can see it. It's open to anyone, and people have to deal with it. In the gallery, it's the same 150 people on the San Francisco art scene. There's a dynamic on the street that's definitely more interesting.
I was always interested in photography and other forms of art.
I like all sorts of art, that's why I love wandering around The National Gallery.
I'm a contemporary artist with a bit of an unexpected background. I was in my 20s before I ever went to an art museum. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road in rural Arkansas, an hour from the nearest movie theater.
Doing art at Marlborough, where I went to school, was really quite tough, and I knew that it wasn't the direction I wanted to go. I'd rather show art and give people the joy of seeing it.
I went to the big Picasso retrospective at the Tate in the sixties, and I think I went to an Andy Warhol retrospective at the Tate in the sixties, too. My mother was very good at taking me to things like that. We lived in Reading, but we went on these cultural trips to London.
I am always looking for ideas, whether it is in art on the street or in my world travels. It comes to me randomly and unexpectedly.
I think art comes out of meaningful experiences, and it's hard to make art when your meaningful experience is getting into your electric car and driving from your fancy house in the Hills to your fancy job in the Valley.