This series of works on paper uses traditional printing processes (etching with copper plates) and photocollage. Most of the photographs are original 19th or early 20th century, cut to size. The inked copper plates are wafers, slices of silicon that have been printed with metal liquids that conduct electricity with minimum heat. The visible squares are later cut out to become chips.

I like using the wafers for several reasons.

First, I use the wafers as a metaphor for organized data. Before computers, there were two dimensional representations of ideas using graphs, bars, pies, flow charts, chemical formulae., etc. Architectural drawings are another example. The wafers are a metaphor for printouts, a new voice for representing data as it is sorted, matched, summarized, and presented.

Second, I enjoy the abstract beauty of each wafer; it is beautiful in and of itself. In landscape scenes, the intricate patterns of leaves, bark, grasses, reeds, etc., are shown next to wafers because they are different patterns, maybe similar but in different scale. Juxtaposed with the stork's nest, I display the computer chips like a naturalist might sketch the architecture of the bird's home. The fortress, shown with a wafer plan next to, visually reminds me of Renaissance floorplans I see on museum trips throughout Europe. The photographs of old people -ancestors- with their steady gaze at us, remind me of my own genetic code transmitted in fluid, but represented on paper in squares, dots, and jots.

Third, I have had a career in high tech for over 20 years. I have been recognized as an expert on certain matters, including the use and adoption rate of office appliances in organizations, office automation, etc. Therefore, when I use technology remnants in my art, I am reflecting on the way technology has or will change human behavior and language.

Specifically, I am marking the transition in the English language of original, as in the original document. Originals were required by courts for evidence for over 200 years, and now this word in that context and that concept, have been rendered useless with the acceptance of electronic documents for the Supreme Court of the United States. Within a matter of decades, the ideas of original and copy of documents may not be relevant in most cases. Perhaps family photographs are the next example of where original and copy are equally valued, and where copies may be preferred.