There was a culture then, almost a requirement, that one needed to build platforms and contexts (social or political) to support one’s thesis, and then material practice would follow. These issues were pressing, because by this time I had begun to teach at Cooper Union. I was negotiating between promoting a rigorous painting model and a new context—conversations with students and colleagues about contemporary art issues and institutional critique. So it was a very complicated time for me as an educator, to figure out how to insist on a conversation about painting rigor in relation to contemporary art. I continued to go the way that I needed to with my own work, both protecting it from the institutional framework and furthering my ideas about painting in school and in the studio—it was a tough, amazing time.