·         Smith found Jasper John’s ideas of making a “painting making the painting itself the object rather than a painting of the object” intriguing.

·         She writes in 1992: “My abstract works of the late 60’s and 70’s were coming out of these concerns… Some were shaped and all were done with spray paint on muslin. The surfaces resembled plowed fields, aerial views of the land from very high, reflections of light on water, bit of more importance, in my abstract work (as has been said of Agnes Martin, ‘I wanted to paint moments of experience (rather then things). Not to evoke nature itself but the experience one feels in the presence of nature.”

·         Smith’s painting Encounter I was included in Art by Women at the Berkeley Art Museum in 1973. 9 years later, she also appeared in the Women’s Caucus For Art New York Chapter exhibition and catalogue Views by Women Artists.

·         In the New York of the 1970s, women artists made an effort to get to know and support one another. Smith participated in a special conscience raising group made up of New York women artists brought together by curator Marcia Tucker. Smaller groups met regularly in their studios. Smith’s group included Barbara Krueger, Ree Morton, and Arlene Slavin, among others.