"I was more concerned with how it felt to be in and pass by gas stations. The piece is twenty-five feet of darkness punctuated by abrupt geometric forms that resemble tires, oil cans, and coke machine. I'm interested in the colours, the lights, the tired young man, the energetic older man, how long it takes me to walk the long corridor."

George Segal, May 1968

"When I first showed "The Gas Station" a lot of people were horrified at fifteen feet of blank emptiness in the centre of the piece. They cited the then current ad for an art school correspondence course: "Do you make these mistakes in composition?" I was more concerned with how it felt to be in and pass by gas stations. The piece is twenty-five feet of darkness punctuated by abrupt geometric forms that resemble tires, oil cans, a coke machine. I'm interested in the colours, the lights, the tired young man, the energetic older man, how long it takes me to walk the long corridor. It struck me later that the walking man in coveralls would look like St. John the Baptist if he turned his hand up the other way." George Segal, May 1968