But Abstract Expressionism never was his thing. In 1958, an art "happening" organized by fellow New York artist Allan Kaprow got Segal started doing sculpture. He used those things which he knew best...wood, chicken wire, burlap, and plaster in fabricating life-size human figures which he began installing in starkly realistic urban settings often jerked from real life with a chain saw or cutting torch. In 1961, technology came along and made his life easier with the invention of plaster-impregnated gauze bandages intended for doctors in making plaster casts. Segal began using them to make molds of real people which he then took apart and cast in plaster parts, rejoining them into ghostly white images often reflecting the surreal loneliness of American urban life. Later, he dispensed with the castings and began using the molds themselves to capture the essence of his figures minus the more delicate details. These were no less effective in rendering the eerie feeling on alienation of his earlier work.