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mean, if you're going to be a painter, or a sculptor, you do the things because you want to and what turns you on is your business. If we were to be sitting in a bar and were to get smashed, I might say things if I trusted you enough not to misinterpret what I was saying about secondary meaning, [[crossed-out]] to say things that I want to say in an interview because [[/crossed-out]] but I don't want [[crossed-out]] it to [[/crossed-out]] a painting to be looked at as subject matter first and painting second. That's really the whole point, because people, especially art historians, love to take the so called meaning and then fit all the visual material into that meaning, which is [[crossed-out]] just [[/crossed-out]] to me, backwards. I mean, you deal with certain visual elements, otherwise you wouldn't be a painter. You'd be a writer or whatever. If it becomes that important, you shouldn't be painting. I mean, why bother to put out all that work into something visual if you're then going to deal with it in [[crossed-out]] terms of work [[/crossed-out]]verbally.
EY: Then its not entirely an intellectual process -
MM: No, not at all. It's the opposite.
EY: - besides the subject.
MM: Just the opposite
EY: What appeals to you visually as your choice is the reason why you choose to put something specific in your painting?
MM: I can take the same thing theoretically (subject matter) and do it a whole bunch of ways if that was all I was dealing with. I'm thinking of one painting in particular, [[crossed-out]] if [[/crossed-out]] for whatever reason. (If we're going to de stream of consciousness, why not?) But [[crossed-out]] take [[/crossed-out]] the Athens at Sounion; one can do a painting based on that sculpture and that temple and not do it in that way. There's a visual thing that's taking place because of the placement and the relationship of those two objects that is far different than [[crossed-out]] some [[/crossed-out]] other ways. You use the same subject [[crosssed-out]] material [[/crossed-out]] and it can be excruciatingly boring because that's not what its about. It's about [[crossed-out]] this [[/crosssed-out]] the particular visual impact of having [[crossssed-out]] this [[/crossed-out]] an enormous head against [[crossed-out]] this [[/crossed-out]] a temple which in that particular photograph was photographed in a particular way that appealed to me. I chose both of those things for that reason and put them together [[crosseed-out]] for that [[/crossed-out]]. Because of [[crosssed-out]] this [[/crossed-out]] the wild visual thing that went on; it is not simply because it was a sculpture