Top 34 Quotes by Mickalene Thomas

In my family, growing up, the women were always the ones who were powerful, and they exuded this charisma of empowerment that I hold onto and always remember. I had some difficult times, but these strong women were always a constant.

When I decided to go to art school, it wasn't necessarily something I thought I needed. No one talked about graduate school when I was an undergrad. I went on to a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and that transition from Yale to the Studio Museum, that was the real beginning of my professional career.

My artistic decision to cast my mother's objects into bronze moves beyond the notions of memorializing her. I've been fascinated for some time with the idea of monumentality and what it means to memorialize. Both of these notions are relevant historically, artistically, and culturally.