Along the walls of the studio are stacks of paintings and shelving and wooden flat file cabinets: Rows of Fractions, the small works on paper that Larry Bell is fashioning from the detritus of failed works past, are push-pinned to the walls. There are the three dry mounting/laminating presses, one in the front room and two in the next room back; a small high-vacuum coater, a chamber used for depositing vaporized substances on a surface; and a much larger high-vacuum coater, with a 6' in diameter circular door, that looks like a decompression chamber used by divers.

In front of the door of the large coater is a table covered with stacks of squarish chips made from rejected mirage work. The mirage works were built up by melting layers of painted laminating film to a canvas ground, and the chips are at least an eighth of an inch thick and anywhere from an inch square to about four inches square. There are thousands of these stiff but pliable chips, each of which has a unique pattern.

Larry creates his Fractions in batches of 36. He stands in front of the table and places on it a sheet of 10"-by-10" watercolor paper. The paper might be blank or it might have a postcard-size swatch of color in the center. He lets his eyes wander over the chips. If the sheet has been painted on, he might pick up a chip that has flocks of a color related to the color on the paper. Or he might see a chip that has an especially interesting pattern. Sometimes he positions a chip on the sheet, then removes it and looks for a better choice.

After placing one or more chips on the sheet of paper, Larry sometimes takes it to another work table. Next to this table are vapor drawings (works on paper created using a high-vacuum coater to deposit the pigment) and pieces of laminating film covered with squiggles of acrylic paint. Using scissors he might cut a small piece from a vapor drawing or trim a squiggle of paint from a piece of film for placement on the sheet. Often brings the sheet of paper to the laminating press directly after choosing and arranging the mirage work chips.

The press looks like a very thick metal door (about eight inches thick) that is lying flat and supported by legs. It is divided in two and hinged on one of the long sides, like a briefcase, and the top half, or lid, can be lifted up, exposing a flat surface approximately 8' by 4'. The objects to be pressed are placed on this surface. When the lid is lowered and the press is turned on, a vacuum is created that causes the pieces to push upward against the metal sheet (the platen) located at the bottom of the lid.

When 36 sheets, along with the release papers, are in the press, Larry covers them with a large piece of fabric. The fabric has a weave pattern that will impart a slight texture to the surface of the Fractions. He then covers the fabric with an equally large sheet of silicon paper, The silicon paper acts as a nonstick barrier between the fabric and the platen.

Laminating film needs to be heated to 150F before it melts enough to adhere to a surface. Larry can raise the temperature of the platen up to 300F. Recently he has been using a temperature of 270F and setting the timer for 35 minutes in order to "really cook' the chips. The chips, when subjected to this level of prolonged heat, go into the press looking one way and come out looking quite different. When the heat migrates, down through the covering layers and reaches the chips, they begin to melt and distort. Sometimes colors that have been hidden in the middle layers of a chip get newly exposed. Defined lines might be transformed into wavy bands reminiscent of a seismograph. Drips of paint can. get enlarged or can disappear altogether.

When the 35 minutes is up, a buzzer goes off. Larry turns the heat off and opens a valve to release the vacuum. He unlatches the lid and lifts it up, then rolls up the silicon paper and the fabric so that the Fractions can cool more easily- They still are covered with the release paper, which must be left on until the laminating film sets, up. After half an hour, the paper can be safely removed. Larry takes the Fractions from the press one by one and checks to make sure there are no imperfections, such as bubbles on the surface. He also, of course, is judging them aesthetically at the same time. He places them in rows on a table, the equivalent of hot cross buns taken from the oven. Later they will be curated and put into boxes.