DONALD BAECHLER

I'm drawn to silhouettes because of their emblematic rather than their illustrational quality. I see them as shapes, allowing an image to become an abstraction and for pure painting to take place.

In the same way I accumulate objects, I also accumulate images, and I find them arranging themselves into categories, too. And some images insist on being painted; others don't.

I'll get boxes full of books and objects from perfect strangers in the oddest places. Teachers will send me students' drawings, etc. It's hard to sift through it all.

I miss Dia. In the early '80s I was a guard at one of Dia's facilities in SoHo, and I'm sad that they closed their Chelsea space.

I'm a serial renovator of apartments and old houses, so I'm in daily need of doorknobs, subway tiles, and 14-foot-tall pier mirrors.

Taxidermy is the one thing I collect that I've never used.

I'm a pack rat, like most people.

I'll get boxes full of books and objects from perfect strangers in the oddest places. Teachers will send me students' drawings, etc. It's hard to sift through it all.

In the same way I accumulate objects, I also accumulate images, and I find them arranging themselves into categories, too. And some images insist on being painted; others don't.

I'm drawn to silhouettes because of their emblematic rather than their illustrational quality. I see them as shapes, allowing an image to become an abstraction and for pure painting to take place.

I miss Dia. In the early '80s I was a guard at one of Dia's facilities in SoHo, and I'm sad that they closed their Chelsea space.

Taxidermy is the one thing I collect that I've never used.

I'm a serial renovator of apartments and old houses, so I'm in daily need of doorknobs, subway tiles, and 14-foot-tall pier mirrors.

I'm a pack rat, like most people.