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" I was my father's sidekick, in a way. He was a very dominant, forceful character. "

Cornelia Parker

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" A lot of my work has been about stuff I've been frightened of: cliffs, explosions, meteorites, that kind of stuff. I would have been this trembling blob of fear if I hadn't got into making art, which is a good way of deferring it. "

Cornelia Parker

" A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick. "

Cornelia Parker

" I try to avoid the 'art world' as much as possible. It's too much about fads and fashions - who's getting the best prices at auction and things like that. "

Cornelia Parker

" There's only a couple of coffee cups I'll use, because I like the way they feel in my hand. I realise I've got lots of others, but I won't use them because I just don't like... the thickness of the ceramic is too much, or the glaze isn't right. "

Cornelia Parker

" My work has threads of ideas from all over the place. I try to crystallise them in something simple and direct that the viewer can then take where they want. "

Cornelia Parker

" At times, I've been incapacitated by anxiety and unhappiness. You really know what joy is if you have experienced the opposite. "

Cornelia Parker

" People often want the big dramatic works, not the smaller quieter ones, but I don't worry about how it fits together anymore; I just have to do it. I feel compelled to make a work: it's like an itch I have to scratch, and once it's been scratched, it goes away. "

Cornelia Parker

" I think my work is like a spiral: you keep coming back on yourself, but you're at a different place. It's like reading 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' every five years. You realise that some things have caught up. "

Cornelia Parker

" To make large, site-specific work as an artist is usually quite tortuous; there are so many boxes you have to tick. "

Cornelia Parker

" You only get one life, so it seems to me you might as well do the things you want to do. "

Cornelia Parker

" Who thought it would be a good idea to undermine art in the school curriculum? Who thought studying the history of our visual culture was a waste of time? Who thought that only private schools should have that privilege? Was it someone who said we don't need experts? "

Cornelia Parker

" The idea of going off to an office every day and 'putting on my art hat' doesn't appeal. "

Cornelia Parker

" Being a sculptor who uses found objects, all the objects I use in my work have been designed by other people. So I'm tweaking them in some way by squashing them or throwing them off cliffs! Then I formalise my damage by suspending them or arranging them in some kind of way. So I'm using other people's design in a way, so I'm an 'un-maker.' "

Cornelia Parker

" I don't particularly look at other artists when I'm working. But references do come into my work intuitively. "

Cornelia Parker

" Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing - I grew up thinking that Armageddon was just around the corner - now I know it is, with global warming and all. I can keep it at bay by doing the work. It's a sort of reverse sympathetic magic. I'm always doing it so it doesn't happen to me. "

Cornelia Parker

" Product design is fed by the avant-garde. "

Cornelia Parker

" My parents were always doubtful about my making a living as an artist. Even when I was up for the Turner Prize, my mum suggested I apply for a curator's job. "

Cornelia Parker

" I don't skip meals, because I get blood sugary. "

Cornelia Parker

" When people listen to music, they don't worry about what it means like they do about art. Everyone's an expert on music, but with art, I always find I have to defend its existence. "

Cornelia Parker

" I think I'm a feminist, hopefully by example. I just feel it's important to do as much as I can as a woman, to the best of my ability. "

Cornelia Parker

" I went to a quite macho art school in the 1970s, and while everyone was making hulking big sculptures, I was making things out of bits of paper. "

Cornelia Parker

" I think your subconscious knows far more than your conscious, so I trust it. "

Cornelia Parker

" I gave birth aged 45, which was a bit of a shock. "

Cornelia Parker

" My mother became mentally unwell with schizophrenia when I was in my teens... We couldn't watch television because she thought the people on TV were sending her messages. She thought there were hidden cameras everywhere, so we had to have the curtains drawn. "

Cornelia Parker

" If you cut art from school, you're going to have a lot more looted shops. "

Cornelia Parker

" I have never fitted neatly into the arts section, I don't think. "

Cornelia Parker

" That's the problem with working and living in the same space - my studio is downstairs, so I often get distracted by domestic things. "

Cornelia Parker

" Art historical reference is like learning to drive a car - you always know how to drive even though you're not analysing how. "

Cornelia Parker

" I need eight hours of sleep, but I never get it except at weekends. "

Cornelia Parker

" Some people separate their work and home lives, but I love the idea of having my studio and house in the same space. "

Cornelia Parker