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I had deeply low periods in the past few years--seeing my closest friend [photographer] Robert Mapplethorpe unfortunately contract AIDS in the prime of his life. He did everything he possibly could to beat his card. But he worked right to the end, and whenever I feel like life got a little tough on me, I always zero in on him or others who cherished their life force and fought to keep it. They did die young, and I find it my duty either to continue to tell people about them or to honor them in my work. People who do good work have a certain glow; for instance, someone like Audrey Hepburn got more and more beautiful, right to her death. I just braid my hair. I haven't done anything about the gray.
--Reported by Ratu Kamlani and Aisha Labi/New York