I Had The Landscape In My Arms

Every So Often Every Artist Feels, 'i'll Never Paint Again. The Muse Has Gone Out The Window.' In 1985, I Hardly Painted At All For Three Months, And It Was Agonizing. I Looked At Reproductions. I Stared At Matisse. I Stared At The Old Masters. I Stared At The Quattrocento. And I Thought To Myself - Don't Push It! If You Try Too Hard To Get At Something, You Almost Push It Away.

There Are No Rules. That Is How Art Is Born, How Breakthroughs Happen. Go Against The Rules Or Ignore The Rules. That Is What Invention Is About.

I Have Always Been Concerned With Painting That Simultaneously Insists On A Flat Surface And Then Denies It.

A Picture That Is Beautiful, Or That Comes Off, Or That Works, Looks As If It Was All Made At One Stroke.

Whatever The Medium, There Is The Difficulty, Challenge, Fascination And Often Productive Clumsiness Of Learning A New Method: The Wonderful Puzzles And Problems Of Translating With New Materials.