I observe two prevailing tempers in your work: quiet contemplation in the studio, and the lively, bustling scene at nightclubs. Are these two sides of your personality?

"Maybe so! I have never really consciously tried to resolve what prompted me to be involved in a certain subject matter; I try to let my intellect follow my feelings. However, in 1993 I spent a semester in New York working with the late Marc Crawford--poet, writer and jazz expert. I loved it. We collaborated on an art venture. I had proposed a project: to register a relationship between music and other arts. He was teaching a course in jazz. He actually held the course at a jazz club, The Village Gate. It was a tremendous experience for me because I was able to work in a live setting, while the musicians played. He wrote poetry, I drew sketches."

What is the pleasure of painting?

"I only understand it after I've painted. Sometimes a week or two passes, I look at a painting and think this is what I did, that's how I was thinking. Again, I try to let my intellect follow my feelings. There's an interesting remark that (Romare) Bearden made; it's meant a lot to me. He was explaining something to a student or someone and he said, 'it's not so much what you see, but what you feel about it.' That's where the real creativity comes in; when you can express an emotion. That's not always easy to do; to make a color express what you feel, to make the form register what you feel."