Series: Prism / Passage Speaking about his Prism series, Hickok says, “As you go through life, you’re making a groove, literally, in your brain. That’s where we locate habit, pattern, expertise, or simply memory. It’s this groove we call life. That’s what I’m accessing in this series.” The works can be read, he says, as maps of his life. “Some people read palms; I read my paintings. I like to look down at this series, from a distance, almost from an aerial view, a God’s-eye view, and it’s like God watching my life, watching my groove-making.” Responding to the long lines that turn abruptly at sharp angles to form a triangle or a square, Hickok says, “That’s me going in the same direction for a while but then, a sudden, dramatic change. That’s me. I change a lot. That’s who I am as a person and an artist.” The Passages series grew out of one such night-time vision which led to the idea of dream-steps. “When I do them as murals, on walls, I call them Dream-Steps because it’s the notion of moving forward in life, taking one step at a time into a future that keeps rolling in at you like black and white waves. It’s the black and white of life, its Yesses and Nos—but also its grey Maybes.”