"One of the reasons I originally started in black was to see the forms more clearly. Black seemed the strongest and clearest. ...I didn't want it to be sculpture and I didn't want it to be painting. ...the thing is that it's something beyond that we make. My work has never been black to me to begin with. I never think of it that way. I don't make sculpture and it isn't black and it isn't wood or anything, because I wanted something else. I wanted an essence." (Louise Nevelson, in an interview, 1971)