Howard explained her work in this way,

The "Up/Over" piece is meant to move a person to the vast sky of the western part of the country and then back to earth. People out here are organizing nature to fulfill a human need through agriculture. I, too, am organizing nature to fulfill another human need through art. My sources are from nature. My work is involved with the forms of nature. Just as there are opposites in the countryside, there are opposites in my piece. There are straight lines that become curved; an industrial I-beam against an organic form and some-thing heavy but the form is light. 1

Howard expressed the philosophy of her works in general.

I am deeply concerned with the paradox that exists between man's experience of physical reality and his knowledge of conceptual reality. Philosophically, I am directed towards finding connections between apparent opposites rather than finding distinctions. Life seems to have meaning for me when closure exists, i.e., connections are found. I am interested in the similarity of ideas describing reality that exists between contemporary physics and Eastern philosophies.

Light is an important element in my work. Ambient light functions in such a way as to either dematerialize the structure into an almost total ethereal experience, or to reinforce structure, or to sometimes even add illusionary structural elements. Light dematerializes matter into light/energy. . . . I use physical structures as a means of probing beyond physical reality to investigate various levels of consciousness and/or meditative states and their relationship to physical reality. I am concerned with probing the extremes at each end of the scale, moving through each interim and transitional step to find and experience the unification of it all. 2

References:

1. Nebraska Interstate 80 Bicentennial Sculpture Corporation, Official Records, File H-B#3, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, NE.

2. Howard, Linda, letter to Mary Lierly, April 2, 1981.