- Vija Celmins: I tried to paint an ocean but the kind of rigor, the kind of clarity, and the kind of skeletal quality that I thought was really important I couldn't get in a painting.
- Gary Garrels: I think that anybody who starts looking ends up being completely captivated. Once you start, once you get past the point of thinking about the drawing as a simple representation of something else, whether it's of a photograph of the ocean or of a night sky. Once you get over the idea that you are simply looking at a representation of it and you start really looking at the drawing, they are spellbinding.
- Vija Celmins: I want you to stay with the art as if the image was some echo in the back of your mind. I want you to stay with the physicality of the work right there. That's what's real.