After remaking 20,000 POUNDS OF ICE AND NEON for the opening at the Seattle Art Museum, I decided to experiment. Thinking about making a neon “drawing” in the ice, where else do you turn but to an ice rink. So, I approached my hometown rink at the Tacoma Dome for permission to run the test, and permission was granted. However, the local newspaper heard about it and editorialized that my “experiment” should be open to the public, and so finally it was. Open to the public, yes; an experiment, no. After all, I could not fail the folks of my hometown.

We created a spectacle of one hundred thousand pounds of ice in three-hundred-pound blocks with neon of all colors frozen inside, complemented with seven neon tumbleweeds, and an ice-skater to top it all off. Thirty-three thousand people came through that weekend, lots of families came back three or four times, and it made me realize just how interested people-everyday people-are in seeing art and how very much it can mean to children.