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thing, what seemed logical is that the stroke is the truth of it. This was my preoccupation. Then, I began to ask myself, "What are you really interested in?" (This is very important right here: the picture of a realistic picture.) I began to believe, from my conversations with artists, that the real truth is in the stroke. For me, it is large, bold strokes that do not refer to seen nature. The paint is the subject. The motions of the strokes give the work life. This began to enter into my paintings.

What you're saying seems to have a lot to do with physicality, and I know that is also part of the abstract expressionist message in painting. The physical activity of making the work leads to its form and feeling. Do you see your work as having affinities with improvisational music?

Absolutely. It's not just a coincidence that bebop--highly improvisational music--came out around the same time American painters were exploring abstraction in an expressionistic way. I know Franz Kline painted with music. Personally, I'm into the music of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.

Does physicality have to do with your liking to paint big pictures?

When I was in Paris, I already began to have a thing about painting big. In fact, I painted my biggest painting over there in 1955; it was fifteen feet wide by twelve feet wide. You might ask how I could afford to paint it when I was poor. It's because I asked my gallery at the time, "Look, I want to paint big. If you give me the materials and the space, you can have the painting." The picture I made was sold in Paris, and I lost track of it. I only have a black-and-white photograph of it now. I have always had a thing about painting huge pictures, and this might be because I'm small in stature. They call it "trying to be the bull" or "trying to make up for it."

I don't know why, but during this time in Paris, I would use the widest brushes I could find. They were hard to find, but I always looked all over the place for them. Then in 1956, I got into using a broom or what I like to call "the big sweep." I wanted to cover a large area. And the push broom gives you another thing, something you cannot do with your wrist. You can use a broom that's wide with your hand, but it won't give you that straght stroke. You have to want that straight stroke. It's like cutting through somethiong really fast; that's what the staight stroke with the push broom gives you: it's speed.Maybe it's something psychological; it's like cutting through everything. It's also anger or something like it, to go through it in a big sweep. And the push broom stroke can be straight too, the straight stroke, you know.