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Page 6 Q: How many times have you done that with a painting? A: Quite a lot. Q: I noticed that you painted a great many shells and you say that you like to pick up the shell and put it to your ear and it reminds you of days spent in Maine on the show, picking up shells. A: I started listening to shells when I was a child. And, naturally, if you go to the ocean you pick up shells. I can't imagine walking down the beach and not picking up shells, can you? Q: Here you live in the middle of the desert and you mention in the book several times, things remind you of the lapping of the sea. Do you miss the ocean? A: I've never lived with the ocean long enough to get attached to it like I've been attached to the desert. Q: Two of your most famous paintings have been of clam shells. One closed and one open. Now related to the sea and yet related to the desert at the same time. A: Well, when I was at the ocean I visited a friend in a house that was on a beautiful clean beach. And there was a canberry bog between the house and the ocean, and the walk over that. And naturally I had shells and I also would always see the waves coming in on that beach. I liked to go out there at the beginning of the night and see the waves coming in on the beach. Q: Where were those two clam shells painted? Here in the desert or by the water? A: I think they were painted at the water, because in that room I always had platters with the shells...and all kinds of things. Q: The critics interpreted an eroticism in those pictures. A: ...Well, the critics you can't get away from are writing about themselves. So I never take what they write too seriously. It was a great protection to me. Q: And yet you personally wrote your own book so that you could say what you really wanted. A: I wrote the book because I was nagged into writing it by a man who said, if you don't like what other people write about you, write about yourself and don't write about your personal life, just write about your painting.