I paint mostly from real life. It has to start with that. Real people, real street scenes, behind the curtain scenes, live models, paintings, photographs, staged setups, architecture, grids, graphic design. Whatever it takes to make it work.
I make a distinction between true and real. I think that the story is true, it’s just not real. That’s what a parable is. It takes things that we all know are real, and it takes life events that actually happens, and it weaves them into a fiction that allows truth to actually be embedded.
You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
I've got a million people telling me why I can't do it. You know, that I'm not a real designer, that I'm not this. I'm not a real rapper, either!
Be real, because a mask only fools people on the outside. Pretending to be someone you're not takes a toll on the real you, and the real you is more important than anyone else.
Painting, like water, takes any form. Paint is a film of pigment on a plane. It is not real in the way that gravity-bound sculpture is real. It is, however, real.
I was shocked to find out that 1 in 4 women are affected by domestic violence at some point in their lifetime. So many women never tell anyone that they are being abused by their partner. I have joined the 'Real Man' Women's Aid campaign to show that real men don't abuse women and that a real man will always stand up against domestic violence.
My music is for real women and it's about real women and I am a real woman.
It's easy to pretend 'to be fierce and fearless because living your truth takes real courage. Real fearless and fierce women admit mistakes and they work to correct them. We stand up and we use our voices for things other than self promotion. We don't stand by and let racism and sexism and homophobia run rapid on our watch. Real fearless and fierce women complement other women and we recognize and embrace that their shine in no way diminishes our light and that it actually makes our light shine brighter.
If I weren't a theatre designer, I wouldn't be any other kind of designer. Design is interesting to me as it relates to narrative: the design has to support the narrative. Storytelling is the most important thing.
[While designing] I'm mixing two lines of thought really: me as a designer for women and then me as a man. At the start of the design process it's the designer for women that comes to the forefront - sketching and revising the silhouette. Then the man comes into the picture - and I look at the shoe from a very masculine point of view. Then there is a conflict between the two sides of me. Sometimes the man wins, and sometimes the designer wins.
The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
There are real consequences when women speak out. It's really dangerous, and it takes real courage. We are still speaking out against a white male majority. Forget the glass ceiling. We haven't even broken the glass floor!
One of the beautiful parts about Hamilton is it takes these figures that we've always revered as figures of antiquity and there's real blood flowing through their veins. There's real conflict. There's real life.
I can imagine an automotive designer or an industrial designer building a product in 3D, all in real-time. That's the way a lot of people are going to work in the future.
Imagining may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes the real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.