Ms. Paulson, looking back, what would you say has had the biggest influence on your creative journey?

Well, my mom had me at 22 and my sister at 24. When I think about her trying to raise these two young girls in Manhattan, having grown up in an incredibly conservative family and her having a more progressive calling for a more liberal life… It was my mother's bravery, and my mother's pursuit of her creative life that made it possible for me to have the one I currently have. My sister and I talk about all the time about how we wouldn't be where we are in our lives if it weren't for her sort of selfish pursuit; she wasn't moving to New York to give us a better life. She was moving to New York to discover her creative life. But subsequently the consequence of that was enormously positive for both my sister and myself. There's no question about it.

Even today, that kind of pursuit takes a certain amount of daring.

And I think my sister and I both have that kind of ferocity… We're like dogs with bones, we just won't let them go. And that is absolutely who my mother is and the life choices she made. I share her DNA in that way. She did this herculean thing of moving from the only world she knew at a very young age with two very small people that she was responsible for guiding and rearing and raising. She just kept living her life and kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept showing up. And she did it on her own as a single woman.