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I’ve been very lucky. I support 180 charities a year. I started my own charity called “Give Kids a Break.” It’s about giving. That’s what it’s all about. And, why not? I grew up in the South Bronx with nothing. I’m still that kid. I met Picasso when I was a very young kid. I must have been eleven. He was hitting on my mom at the time. And then there were many different phases. I mean, I painted like Van Gogh when I was in the Van Gogh Museum in Europe. They have a restaurant in Amsterdam—it’s a very strange place, but they paint the walls white every two days. Artists come in there and challenge each other to see who paints the most outrageous painting. And your meal is free if you’re the best artist. And whenever I walk in. they go, “Oh, the American’s back.” And I’d be painting Marilyn Monroe or Albert Einstein. With food, not even with paint. I’d be rubbing the food into the walls. And people would be freaking out. And I’ve never had to pay for a meal there.
“A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits.” Steve Kaufman I’ve been shot, stabbed, run over by a truck, run over by a motorcycle, had a stroke three years ago. I had an irregular heart beat while I was in Europe. You know what? Each day you wake up and you sit there and go, “It’s a good day.” Each day you sit there and you say, “What else can I do?” I’m having so much fun. I mean, you don’t go in there and say, okay, this sells, I’m going to make ten more of that. I’m not into that. I do things that people will sit there and say, “Oh my God.” I mean, the ideal is to do something you want to do, and that’s what I do. I capture icons. I paint people … like, I was reading People magazine, and, at the very end of the magazine, they had a whole tribute about the war. I’m going to go home and paint an image about the war and put the three or four thousand people that passed away, their names, on the piece. I’ve done paintings of 9/11. And had all the names of people that passed away from 9/11. It’s not always doing something that’s popular. It’s doing something from the heart.