I don't make drips [in her painting] purposely. This drip business is a pile of shit. If I see them, I take them out [of her painting] like cleaning … - Joan Mitchell

It is quite a narrow studio [1970s], I can never see a big four-panel [panels she was working on the same time as parts of one tryptich] all at once.. ..I can see two big panels. That’s about all.. .I had an awful lot going on at once, going back and forth. I turn [canvases] to a wall (when I am not working on them). I cant paint with everything showing.

When I came back [from a temporary stay in Paris] and heard you play with Charles Mingus, and when you and Cecil Taylor [also a free Jazz musician] opened up the 'Five Spot' in the Fall of 1956, I felt better about being in New York. All the musicians who create from the gut as well as their intellect can change things. People will never understand what we are doing if they can't feel.. .All art is abstract. All music is abstract. But it's all real.. .When you improvise, I can see the seeds of a symphony you could write. When I first heard Charlie Parker in Chicago, I could see he was a symphony.. ..we were all trying to bring that spirit, that spontaneous energy, into our work. [talking to jazz-player David Anram in the jazz club the 'Five Spot', in 1956, she was visiting with Franz Kline ].

I've have tried to take from everybody [every artist in American Abstract Expressionism ].. .I can't close my eyes or limit my experiences.. .Because I live now, I am more interested in art now. It's different as any art is different from period to period. But it's no better or worse.