I used to make arrow heads.

When I was ten years of age and mesmerized by all things Indian, I decided to manufacture an artifact. All it took was time, a hammer, a nail, and a stone. I used the nail as a chisel, the hammer to drive it, and the stone to receive curious grooves which I then rubbed with dirt for the look of antiquity.  And there it was: an artifact. Then I “found” the thing and reported to my parents who were in awe and discussed how valuable it might be to a museum. I was tickled.

Finally, when I was in my thirties it dawned on me that they were the better players. They had me figured out right away. I didn’t realize their counter prank of playing along with convincing gullibility for decades.

Gads I’m slow.

Well things haven’t changed. Except this time I was sincere. I had been devising large scale relief sculpture for public spaces. The idea was to either surface concrete with intricate variations of contour or provide that the side of a building could be fitted with a wall of length and thickness adjustable rods.

Both would share the same purpose by creating a series of patterned shadows which would appear to be just pointless modern art.

The difference would be that they would work exactly as one of those 3-D pictures that you have to look almost cross eyed to bring out a full depth three dimensional design.  The graduations in shadow lengths would be created by rod extension lengths and would mimic patterns that print on a page that create the effect.

I referred to the concept as 2D3D  for two dimensional three dimensional art. I figured a static low relief surface pattern on concrete would work at whatever time of day it was designed for, owing to the position of the sun for shadows. A large version using flat rotate-able rods whose length could be adjusted by a motor at the command of software could be installed on a building and as programmable art, the rods could be repositioned from time to time to create new art or signage that could adjust for the time of day and only be comprehended in the same way that the 3D art pictures are.  So it would  just be interesting surface texturing until someone does that cross-eyed thing that brings out the 3-D imagery.

I described it to a friend who seemed very impressed.

Upon review, however, I think the actual response was more like, “Oh brother. Get me out of here! Nutty.”

As usual, it took a couple of years to realize this. I still think it’s a good idea but I doubt she did.