from the 1/18/11 KCRW interview with director/musician/meditator David Lynch:

KCRW (Jason Bentley): You are such a hero to us here. You have lived the artist’s life and I wonder if you always knew this would be your path or at what point did you know? What inspired you?

David Lynch: I was on the front lawn of my girlfriend’s house in the ‘60s. It was about ten o’clock at night and I had met this fellow named Toby Keilor who didn’t go to my school, he went to private school. He told me his father was a painter…and that was IT!

KCRW: Did you see his work?

David Lynch: I went to his studio that weekend. I begged Toby to take me to his father’s studio. I already knew that that’s I wanted to be, a painter, forever. I knew at the moment he said it. It sort of gave me permission to say it, and go for it. And that was it. Everything after that was based on that wanting to live the art life and work and work and work.

KCRW: Do you find that you approach creativity in its various forms, whether its music or filmmaking, in a similar way or are they always different?

David Lynch: They’re different mediums but a similar way. It’s the ideas that come. Ideas drive the boat -- so you get ideas sometimes for music, you get ideas sometimes for still photography, some ideas for cinema, some ideas for furniture; and you don’t know what’s going to pop in, but you get an idea you fall in love with and you know exactly what you’re going to do and you go to work.