AM: Most artists wouldn’t have the patience for creating such a large-scale artwork filled with small colored cubes. Where does your patience come from, and how long does it take to finish a painting?

A 10,000 oil cube painting normally takes about three months to complete, 8-10 hours a day. The process is like meditation for me, which calms me down. I’m usually an impatient person, but I see the oil cube method as a journey to heal my impatience in life.

Stone’s patience also comes from his childhood training in painting and calligraphy.  As he was growing up in China during the cultural revolution, he had no books to read except for ancient poems of the Tang and Song Dynasties. He was inspired by the words and spirit in each poem and started to learn how to write poems and calligraphy. After he came to New York in 1987, he continued his writing and painting. He published his poems in literary magazines and became a contemporary artist, exhibiting in top contemporary galleries including Alternative Museum, the Clock Tower, White Colum in New York, Grimm-Museum in Germany, as well as Up Gallery and IT Park gallery in Taiwan.