"The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 blac..." — Chuck Close

You don't have to have a great art idea - just get to work and something will happen. So that's pretty much my modus operandi and pretty much my principal position, such as it is.

Painting is the frozen evidence of a performance.

Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.

I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.