Inevitably anthropomorphism enters into this. It’s very hard to do work that’s not referential. I’m more than willing to admit the figure and then dissolve it and deal with architectural references, but for me, it’s about wanting a more complete sense of expression. And I found that it was very simple: As long as I was literally joining pieces together, where one facet was cut and stuck together with another facet, there was meaning and expressive potential.

Where does that expressive potential derive from?

An artist’s vehicle of expression is form, but there has to be some meaning. Whether a piece is paint or wood, or looks like wood but is actually bronze, if the configuration really nails something down and elicits some kind of human thought or experience, that’s great. Every once in a while you get this great gift where it all falls together, and there’s a moment where all of this experience gets synthesized and there’s a real feeling of ecstasy. That’s the great reward of working.

It’s such a simple process, but it’s so difficult. The moments of real actualization of a thought in a form are few and far between. It doesn’t happen with every work. It can’t. Nobody’s hitting home runs all the time.

You make it sound extremely risky.

I’m willing to take risks. I get frightened when my work looks flat or dead. If you have someone there looking at it and they hate it, it can happen. All of a sudden it dissolves. It looks like a bunch of sticks! The more I work the more I realize how art can be enduring and fragile at the same time.

Do you think that’s true of all art?

Really great art has profundity and mystery. When you walk into a museum and see the greatest work, like a Van der Weyden or the Monets at the Orangerie, it would be hard not to be moved by the elation of the experience. It’s riveting. I find it so powerful that I can’t look at it for long.

But can you compare contemporary work with that?

These are ancient values and I think they hold true even for the most radical work.