Pepper introduced her sculptural vocabulary with integrations of wood carvings and metal castings. Art critic, Rosalind Krauss has described her work as violating modernist traditions: "the traditional craft of carving was closed to her...she attacked these logs with electric drills and saws." After several exhibitions in New York and Rome, she was one of 10 artists invited by Giovanni Carandente, with David Smith, Alexander Calder, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Lynn Chadwick, and Pietro Consagra, to fabricate works in Italsider factories in Italy for an outdoor exhibition, "Sculture nella città", held in Spoleto during the summer of 1962. Working directly in the factory, as she would with subsequent major sculptures, Pepper created "The Gift of Icarus, Leda, Spring Landscape", two other large works, and 17 smaller ones.