Lisa Yuskavage, an endearing jumble of earthy and motherly, feminine and bawdy, voluptuous and stout, is sitting in a café not far from her painting studio in downtown Manhattan and remembering the first time she was invited to lecture at her alma mater Tyler School of Art, outside Philadelphia, in the early Nineties. "I was like a pig in s---," she says, beaming. "I was so happy because I got to be a big-shot artist and talk about my work. So one of my teachers stood in front of the whole school and said, "We all got together, the faculty, at the lunchroom, and we were trying to think of what to say. What was Lisa like as a student?" My memory of being there was I worshipped them. I was happy every minute. I had a 4.0–oh, a 3.9. I screwed up one class when I was in Rome. I got a C- in printmaking. It was just too much work. But I was a total nerd. I didn't even relate to a lot of my peers because they were kind of goofing off, and I would be like, "Shh!"
So, Lisa, how did the teacher describe you? (Interrupting may be rude, but whip-smart and articulate though she is, the loquacious Yuskavage has a way of getting lost in her own stories."