I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality.
I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.
Prince was unapologetically different, and he made it okay for his fans to be different and to celebrate their individuality. His social conscience challenged us to look deeper than the skin color of our neighbors.
If you go back to the '80s, you had a whole plethora of artists, everyone from Madonna and Cyndi Lauper to Prince. God bless Lady Gaga for doing her thing, but she's kind of a lone peacock now. If anything, we have a much more conservative kind of pop world. It's not necessarily about individuality.
Individuality or Unity? I say there's room for both.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but clones kind of get it wrong because we are promoting individuality and being proud of being yourself.