Tennis Piece on Vice

"As if answering his own hypothetical, Fletcher has begun constructing courts which take the form even further, from perler beads assembled in a vaguely Southwestern motif to an abstracted design flocked on to a skateboard. Perhaps most intriguing of all is "Trout vs Trout," wherein one half a court was placed before a mirror in Chicago and the other in Austin, for an imaginary match which spanned both space and time.

While the graphically inclined would no doubt find the layouts of other athletic playing courts and fields intriguing, there is something special about the tennis court: pleasingly symmetrical, relatively small in size, and, since they contain at most four contestants, never so crowded that the design can be smothered by action. One does not play atop a tennis court so much as inside it. The same basic design is utilized by women and men, young children and the elderly, ball-chasing buoyant players and hard faced, serious drillers.

"It's set up with particular parameters in mind—like there's a doubles alley; it's a very functional grid, and it's a grid that I connect with," Fletcher said."

- B. David Zarley