Twenty Four Hours 1970 © the Artist

Transcript: Twenty Four Hours, 1960

Clement Greenberg, the critic, said to me "If you want to change your art, change your habits", so I thought, "Let's see, how could I work it?" Because I had tried to make some abstract parts, and I'd tried to make them into sculpture, it hadn't worked out, so let's do something completely different. And it was that made me go down to the docks and buy some steel.

I remember that I had these pieces, one piece at the front, two pieces at the back, propped up in my garage, or just outside my garage actually, and I worked at home and I went to Sheila, my wife, and said, "Come and look what I've done, come and look at this.' And I had these and I was thinking about putting them all together in a different configuration and she said, "Leave it. Go with it, go with it." It's wonderful to have somebody to do that, who does that for you. So, I thought, "Well, I'll take a chance, let's go with it and see what happens." So, I went with that and that started me going really. Had she not said that I might have played for safety.

I'd just made a sculpture and here it was in some funny material, so what do we do with it? Do we paint it? What do we do, you know? It was'it was not'I've never been very self-conscious about saying "What have I done?", "What have I broken?", "Have I broken through?", "Have I changed anything?". No, I just want to make a good sculpture and it's for the critics to say, you know, to draw conclusions.

I've got to get on with the next.