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expected cars or trucks, perhaps even a gyrocopter, maybe farm equipment; not an artistic
assembly-line. Acrylic bins overflowing with colored sand lined one wall. Long benches and tables
occupied the middle of the floor, flanked by stacks of flat boards cut from high-quality hardwood, sheets
of metal, rolls of flexifan.
There was a section set aside for welding, with its own scrapmetal yard and anodizing equipment, as
well as a potter's corner with clay, electronically controlled wheel, and flash kiln. A big commercial-grade
laser cutter dominated a back table like a lost piece of army ordnance.
Finished sandpaintings were stacked neatly in sorting racks, next to framing equipment. Laughter even
had his own seal-wrapping machine and shipping materials. The paintings themselves varied considerably
in size, from miniatures a few inches square to a pair of eight-by-ten foot monsters leaning against the
near wall. Ooljee asked about mem before Moody could.
"They are for the new terminal going in at Casa Grande International Airport." Laughter was obviously
proud of his work. "They'll be viewed from a distance, hence the outlandish proportions. As you can see,
all the designs and yeis are rendered oversized."
"What's a yei?" Moody inquired.
"A spirit. A god. A person. It depends. Yei-bei-chei. Yei for short."
The two young men working near the back of the shop paid little attention to the newly arrived visitors.
"Apprentices. My assistants," Laughter explained.
Moody watched as one of them prepared to apply an adhesive base to a foot-square piece of thin
metal. His companion finished adjusting a protective mask, then turned to his left and picked up a
hose-and-nozzle arrangement. It hissed like a snake giving warning as he sprayed transparent fixative
over a quartet of finished sandpaintings.
"They do a lot of the drudge work." Laughter studied the pieces with a critical eye. "It frees me to
concentrate on painting and design."
Moody was still a bit taken aback by the sheer scale and mass production aspects of the operation. To
him it didn't look much like art. But then what did he know?
"You don't paint. You use sand."
"Paint is just a medium. Sand is another." Laughter indicated a custom industrial easel that held a
half-finished sandpainting.
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"In the old days you had to lay sand fast because your adhesive would set up. That made for some
sloppy work. This is much better. I use a debondable elastomeric transparent adhesive. You can cover a
whole board with it and work on any section you want without worrying about the rest drying out in the
meantime. The next day you just spray the area you want to work on with the debonder and it becomes
malleable again. None of it sets up hard until you apply the fixative. As for a paintbrush " He reached
behind a nearby workbench.
Moody flinched instinctively when Laughter emerged holding what looked like a gun. In an industrial
sense, it was. Instead of emitting a high-powered stream of fine grit to scour away old paint and varnish,
Laughter's sandblaster had been modified to apply sand. The width and impact of the stream could both
be manipulated electronically. A built-in switch allowed the attached vacuum hose to select from any of
the nearby bins of colored sand. The whole contraption was no bigger than an automatic pistol. One hose
connected it to its air supply, a second to the sand distributor. The custom device was a compact cross
between a sand-blaster and an airbrush.
Laughter slipped on protective goggles and demonstrated how it all worked by adding to the
sandpainting in progress. Three eagle feathers, white tipped with black, appeared in the lower right-hand
corner of the board as he played the nozzle back and forth over the treated surface.
"You can go pretty fast with the setup we have here," he said as he shut off the unit and picked up
another self-contained device. While they looked on, he carefully applied fixative to the feathers he'd just
drawn, securing them to the board.
Moody found the technique more intriguing than the technology. ' 'There's nothing on there; no tracings,
no outlines. Don't you sketch in your designs before you start?"
Laughter slid the goggles up onto his head. "Don't need to. I started learning from my father when I was
eight. The designs we use are sketched in permanently up here." He tapped his forehead. "That's where a
good hatathli keeps his. But I'm not a hatathli, of course. I'm just a painter. Though I know what not to
paint."
Moody kept pace with him as they exited the workshop. "Paul's told me about that."
Laughter smiled softly. "Then you know that no commercial, fixed, permanent sandpainting, no matter
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