[Q] How do you know when a sculpture's finished?

It tells you. Larry Poons said that, you know? ‘When it says yes to me; when it says yes to me'. It tells you; it tells you. Not always. Not always.

[Q] How do you begin a sculpture? With an idea? With two bits of material?

Both. Oh, hundreds of different ways. Probably with a sort of direction... probably with a sort of direction. I mean with two bits of material you can do it, and then you have some fun and it's lovely and you're making a nice thing that works out. But that's kind of like a given, an extra, creaming it. You're creaming it, when you're doing that. But when you... but I think you don't do that; I think you... you tend to sort of say, ‘Well, I think we need to go this way. I think we're thinking about what... we're thinking about throughness, we're thinking about looking from the one side'. Very important... how you see the sculpture is very important. How the... how the spectator, the viewer, looks. Does he look from a position and let the sculpture turn round? Does he want the sculpture to corkscrew? Does he want front, back, sides, you know? I mean, one of the most interesting things I thought about the Damien... early Damien Hirst was: you're walking through it. You could see the thing on both sides; you would walk through in the middle. That's an interesting way of... of thinking about sculpture, you know, it... it being round you... you know. Are you inside the sculpture perhaps? You know that's... that's why I'm very interested in... in environments... environmental sculpture, you know – installations and things – because it's a different sort of way of seeing sculpture, a different way of approaching it. And that, I think, informs a lot of... of how you... of how you start a sculpture.

On the other hand, you know, I... for example, that sculpture, “Halifax Steps”, started with the poles; there were the poles in the place where I made that sculpture and the poles suggested to me that we went round the poles. And then, having made that, you developed that and you say, ‘Well, maybe we don't need the poles; we'll try doing it without the poles. Maybe we'll try doing it big, you know, or maybe we'll lay it down on its side. Or maybe we'll hang it from the ceiling or maybe we'll go down and treat it as architecture and go into another... on to another level'. I mean all these are... are different ways. Or just sheer fury; anything could make you start; anything could make you start.