"If it were not for the presence of Alexander Calder in my life, I would probably never have ventured into the world of creating art. But Calder did enter my life in the early 60's after I attended shows of his work at the Whitney and Guggenheim museums in New York. He has remained my mentor and major influence. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote of Calder's mobiles that they were "neither wholly alive nor wholly mechanical... mobiles do not seek to imitate anything because they do not seek any end whatever, unless it be to create scales and chords of hitherto unknown movements - they are lyrical inventions, technical combinations of an almost mathematical quality and sensitive symbols of nature." I would say I am more moved by the egalitarian, self-complete sense of Calder's work that Sartre writes about than by any of his specific works.

However, I am compelled to send various forms, that my imagination and hands conjure up, through space. Creating mobiles is a passion for me, as it must have been for Calder. I am grateful for his influence and am flattered when people perceive his presence in my work. But most of my mobiles are spontaneously created and any real similarities to the shapes of Calder's mobiles, in all probability, do not exist."

Robert Kantor, from interview in The Hope Series and Other Scuptures by Daniel Kany (CoCA Editions: Seattle, 2006).