Gradually [late 1920's] the canvas became the base and the painting was a sculpture. [quote, early 1950's] - David Smith

..that men could view as natural, without reverence or awe but to whom such things were natural
because they were statements of peaceful pursuit – and joined in the phenomenon of life

It will say that in peace we have time that a man has vision, has been fed, has worked..
..That hands and minds and tools and material made a symbol to the elevation of vision

I knew metal working before I knew Calder [famous for his sculptures, made in sheet metal], and Calder is one of our great men and he is earlier by a few years than any of the rest of us [in American Abstract Expressionism ]. Calder had worked in Paris quite a bit in the early days, though he did go to school here in New York at the Art Student's League.. .After my first year in college I had worked on the assembly line in the Studebaker plants up in Indiana..