You made a good criticism of some of my paintings when you said that they looked like smoke.  I don’t think anyone had ever said that before and this had not occurred to me.  One day when I had painted all day, I began looking my production over and became aware that everything that I had painted that day had a mystical message.  I had been unaware of any mood I was in but it had shown up in my paintings.  You see, my paintings are so completely creative that things creep into them from, I suppose, the subconscious.  Yet, I am not conscious of the whys of their development.  When I say subconscious, I immediately stop myself-because I have no clear cut definition of what subconscious is.  I proclaim that I am not superstitious.  I even find it impossible to accept some antiquity.”

“ I got up in the morning and the brush caught hold of my hand, it didn’t let go until the sun was going down - way down in the west.  Then I was so exhausted that there was no strength left for me to stand longer at my painting table.  The rooms by then were strewn with color.  I had no idea how many I had painted - it might be thirteen, twenty, twenty-seven, or thirty - the number varied from day to day and week to week.  Altogether, I have painted several thousand.  I have been called by some the world’s most prolific painter, and for a fact I painted sixty-four small paintings one day.  The museum director said, “Don’t tell anybody that”.  But I knew that it was a feat, and couldn’t help but tell it from time to time.  It was a record that I never did repeat or come near again.  This particular day I was very tired when I had only painted twelve pictures.  I looked to see how many pieces of wet paper I had left in my pad.  There was one more piece of wet paper left.  I debated.  One more would be thirteen and thirteen, as everyone knows, is an unlucky number.  I defied luck and painted it anyhow.  I painted a vase of red roses.  It was very pretty.  As I lay on the couch resting, a thought struck me.  Wouldn’t it be funny if my vase had thirteen roses in it.  I looked.  It had.”

“I am very interested in the rougher texture one gets through deliberately wadding up the paper before it is smoothed  out for painting.  Of course, this further weakens the paper which is quite fragile while it is wet, but since an artist is more interested in the final effect, anything is permissible  to get that effect.”

“I have had so many adversities related to my painting - along with some notable successes - that I sometimes wonder at my determined drive to keep trying in the face of some of my disasters.  Everything one creates doesn’t turn out a masterpiece but it is such a joyous thrill  to bring off something you recognize as being good from your innermost self.”