I never really imagined a show about a sponge going past our first season. I thought maybe we'd have a cult following, and we'd be gone after one season.

I thought, well, what about a show that stars undersea creatures, and some of the ones you rarely see animated. So, from there, I just started drawing different animals in a kind of a setting that was this nautical world. It's not realistic but sort of a fantastic environment.

I just kind of figured that the marine biology would be a career, and the art would be something I did for my own self-expression.

One night, I was really beat; we worked really late and went to get food at some takeout place. And I leaned over against this gumball machine, just exhausted, and there was a SpongeBob looking back at me. And it's just, like, 'Oh, brother.'

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

Well, I'm leaning probably toward the sciences like physics.

Nature engenders the science of painting.

Our society, the dominant culture doesn't like science. It doesn't like technology.