THE FROGS

Inside Story

Two frogs. Holding hands. Dancing.

CAMPFIRE STORY

THEY WERE ALREADY DANCING

Many years ago, when I was a commercial photographer in Manhattan, there were stretches between jobs when my crew and I would make photographs simply because we wanted to.

We built little fantasies in the studio. A woman from my neighborhood has seen some of them and asked me to make one with her ten-year-old daughter.

Down in the corner were two frogs, holding hands and dancing.

Years later, I came back to them. What stayed with me wasn’t simply the frogs. It was the gesture between them - the larger frog leading, the smaller one dancing, their finger barely touching.

That was the part I wanted to keep.

WORDS ENTER THE BODY

When I returned to the frogs, I began with their solid forms. Then I covered their bodies with the word FROG - different sizes, different typefaces, wrapping around the surface.

At first, the words were still only a skin. There was a perfectly solid frog underneath them.

Then I began to wonder: what if I took the frog away?

MAKING IT PHYSICAL

On the computer, a line can float anywhere. A sculpture can't.

Every letter had to connect. Openings had to remain open. Delicate forms had to become strong enough to print, handle, plate and survive as an object.

The drawing had become engineering.

WORDS BECOME THE FROG

I began removing the solid body beneath the letters.

What remained was a network of words - touching, overlapping and supporting one another.

The body was disappearing. But the frog was still there.

EVEN THE FLY

The frog needed a fly. So I made one.

Once I had started building bodies from language, there was no reason the fly should escape.

Its body and wings are built from the word FLY.

First the digital structure. Then the tiny metal fly, perched right on the frog's tongue.

It's a small thing you might not notice at first. I like that.

BECOMING AN OBJECT

Eventually all of this had to leave the computer.

The forms were 3D printed and prepared for electroplating, where metal could be built over the printed structure.

Something that had existed as information became something I could hold in my hands.

THE GESTURE SURVIVED

By the end, almost everything about the way the frogs were made had changed.

Solid bodies became openings. Surface became language. Language became structure. Digital information became metal.

But the thing I cared about at the beginning was still there.

Two frogs.

Holding hands.

Dancing.