Women are looked at. But as an artist, I had permission to look back. Where the respectable avert their gaze, artists stare. - Molly Crabapple

The Jewish heritage that resonates the most with me is our history as rebels and rootless cosmopolitans. Our history as the first white Freedom Riders who were murdered. Our history as dissident intellectuals like Hannah Arendt. Our skepticism, our nonalignment, all the things that made authoritarians throughout the world hate us so much.

You take photos. Drawings you make. Cameras steal life force. Paintings, like The Picture of Dorian Gray, give you more.

I started drawing when I was four. It fast became a way to relate to a world where classmates wrote death threats on my book bag. In grade school, I'd draw kids so they wouldn't hit me. Artists are courtiers more often than rebels. Painters survived the gulags by drawing criminals' kids. Being small and skilled, you learn to create little portals of escapism-to which the strong are as susceptible as anyone else.