Molly Crabapple

“I'm only the third artist who's ever drawn at Gitmo.”

“I am lucky because I do fine art, and that is half of my living. And then illustration provides the other half.”

“My technique of working is I go around with my iPhone and with my sketchbook. I take thousands and thousands and thousands of iPhone photos. I also draw from life. I can draw really, really, really fast. It's a way that I build a rapport with people.”

“The first time I made any money, I was 27. I went to Bergdorf's looking like a proper guttersnipe and bought a pair of Louboutins. I'd wear them and an old ink-stained kimono and make my drawings and feel indomitable.”

“Sketching is like dancing. It's process as much as product. You can turn your head off and just sort of dissolve into the now. Doing a giant, super thought-out painting is the opposite of that.”

“Historically, the women who have been the great painters of the canon have very often have been the wives or daughters of supportive men. Like Artemisia, whose father was a very established painter. I will say that the two current contemporary artists I admire the most are women: Kara Walker and Swoon.”

“The type of work I do, which is often called 'Pop Surrealism,' is very separate from Gagosian and Mary Boone type of gallery art.”

“Art is for the elite because it has a very high price-point of entry. And when one is in that social strata, they look down at illustrators because they just draw things directly for a few hundred dollars, and that's seen as being a bit grubby. Galleries allow artists to stay relatively divorced from the financial aspects of their trade.”