This is a photorealistic mosaic which depicts three tacks: copper, aluminum, and steel. The medium is the subject and the subject is the medium, creating a meta circular reference. From hundreds of photographs, I chose the one that was most interesting that also worked as a three-color mosaic. The mosaic is composed of thousands of tacks placed in a grid. I used basswood on an artist panel, thinking the basswood wouldn't split, but I soon learned I would need to pre-drill every hole to the right depth. For this I created a miniature drill press with two depth presets and bright LED illumination. After a month of work, it became apparent that the image would be dark due to my having spaced the tacks too far apart. Instead of starting over, I decided to remove the tacks and smash their heads to increase surface area and thus brightness. Hence the Acme Head Smasher below. The mosaic took over a year to create and was part of a group show at the Woodside/Braseth Gallery in Seattle.