I knew I was going to be a professional the day I first became practical.
Practicality took the form of copying out my music neatly, keeping
my desk tidy and organized — all the unimportant things that seem
unrelated to the work, yet somehow affect it. Through the years that
passed since then, I have always found it more beneficial to experiment
with fountain pens than with musical ideas. I remember for a time I had
an idée fixe that if I found the right chair to work in, all compositional
problems would become nonexistent. I actually found that chair…
walking in Chinatown one day with Robert Rauschenberg. It was an
old-fashioned accountant’s chair, tall and sturdy, with the word
“Universal” printed in gold letters across the back. Rauschenberg
found a chair, too, I remember. An elegantly lean chair with
a fast-moving seat. I thought it was very much like him.

Some Elementary Questions, Morton Feldman