To Barry Le Va, cleavers seemed to have the right combination of heft, menace, and intimate relationship with the wielder’s hand. He developed nearly forty possible cleaver configurations which he apprehensively believed might collapse and injure him. The final placement of the cleavers depended, according to Le Va, “upon the size and location of the wall, my position in relation to it, the way I was facing, the angle at which I thrust them, and the force. I wanted people to try to reconstruct all this information.”

Le Va’s interest in Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen sparked this undercurrent of mystery and a kind of sleuthing the viewer must perform when engaging with his work. The audience must piece together the process from the drawing or from the end result, which was not entire point of the work.