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How has Mana impacted the local culture? What I've seen in the years I've been here is a lot of high rises and apartments go up. It's clearly impacting the area. It's pretty extraordinary. It's turned into a true community. I was in an artist loft complex in Los Angeles called the Brewery, the old Pabst Brewery, and there were 320 studios larger than this, it was a huge complex. But nobody tried to make it something. You had a landlord whose number one concern was money, and just wanted you to pay. Period. I respect that, but no idea how to make it a community, to get important people there, it could've really become something. I had some good friends there, but what they're doing here, this is a destination. A destination for curators, for dealers, for people who want to see art, people who want to buy art. I didn't expect that. I came here for the space and the light. It's funny because when I saw the studio that Sunday I told my wife, and she said to me, I think this is a direct quote, "Are you out of your fucking mind? You can't get people to your studio in Brooklyn, how on earth do you think you'll get them to Jersey City?" And I had no idea, I was just freaked out about having to drive through a tunnel. I mean what if there's a leak? You're fucked. [Laughs.] But whatever, it was the smartest thing I ever did. One of my dealers, Scott White, I have only because I was in this studio. Do you experience a lot of ups and downs in your career? Of course. My early success was fits and starts; no good galleries behind what I was doing, maybe some that were OK, some that ripped me off. You know, every typical artist story. The [Jerry] Saltz thing and making the work derivative of Richter really changed the landscape. When I started making that work, and it started selling, it was more fuel to the fire. The one thing that work gave me was a PhD in color. In the course of making this type of work, more [paint] would come off than would actually stay on. I didn't care if I just scraped off $500 dollars worth of paint. And my success ratio with those paintings was probably one out of three. I'm not interested in having an average painting out there. Even if it's sellable. So what? What I want out there, is stuff that sings. The world doesn't need another mediocre painting. With all the work you've created, especially in the last few years, how do you characterize success? VUE ON LIFESTYLE V U E N J . C O M 72

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