“As soon as I start reading, drawing comes to me more easily. I find I ...” — Barry McGee Quote

As soon as I start reading, drawing comes to me more easily. I find I work in my sketchbooks more. But if I'm working on a new show, my reading completely stops except when I'm on a plane. I take a stack of New Yorkers with me. I feel awful about those stacks of New Yorkers.

I love biographies. I read Patti Smith's 'Just Kids.' I'm into that time frame in New York, the '70s and '80s. In art school, I read 'Close to the Knives,' the autobiography of the artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz.

Most inspiration still comes from bicycling around San Francisco. This city never fails to inspire me. It is one of the most vibrant cities - especially visually - with a constant influx of young energy arriving daily. I love it.

Work done illegally outdoors or without permission feels like pure freedom to me. I understand how it can upset many in our society, but in the bigger picture, it is ultimately about freedom. We are living in a time where public space has become a commodity for corporations to control and dictate what is seen and heard.

Whenever anyone sends me a link to a band, saying, 'These guys sound exactly like Soundgarden,' it's always some super simple sludge riff with a singer that sings high and screechy. And it's really awful.

Politics is awful.

On one hand, my gender has never been an issue. The issue has always been what's on the page. But the reality is, an awful lot of women fought an awful lot of battles to get me to that place.

Me and my sisters were so awful. One nanny, we loved, but we hacked her email and sent her boyfriend lots of weird messages, and we once actually locked her in the toilet, too.

You have to think an awful lot about your motivations or people's behavioral intentions or what their body language can indicate or what's really going on or what makes people sometimes do, sometimes, the irrational things they do.