On May 25, 1887, thirty-one Chinese miners were massacred by a gang of seven horse thieves in one or more attacks in Hells Canyon.  The Canyon averages 5,510 feet of depth and cuts through the basaltic plateau creating a gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Most of the miners were impoverished people who specialized in placer mining. Chinese miners were known for the their placer extraction techniques, which included hand-washing of individual rocks, the complete displacement of streambeds and advanced flume and ditching techniques.   Unfortunately and symbolically only ten of the names of the victims have been recovered:  Chea-po, Chea-Sun, Chea-Yow, Chea-Shun, Chea Cheong, Chea Ling, Chea Chow, Chea Lin Chung, Kong Mun Kow, and Kong Ngan. They worked for the Sam Yup Company, headquartered in San Francisco. The massacre, supposedly took place where Deep Creek enters into the Snake River, surrounded by a cove of rocks. 

There are conflicting stories of where and how they were killed, how many days it took to kill all of the miners, why the thieves killed them, and how much gold, if any, was taken. The massacre is considered to be the worst of the atrocities committed by whites against the tens of thousands of Chinese who immigrated to the American West.  The massacre was for the most part forgotten until 1995 when the Wallowa County clerk, Charlotte McIver, came across files in a safe being donated to the county museum.  It is believed that the files were hidden in the safe to protect the thieves from being prosecuted for their crimes. 

After the images were taken, they were digitally altered, printed onto a transparency and laminated between a mirror and a sheet of glass.  The surface of the glass has approximately twenty layers of paint.  Each layer is applied, brushed out, and then left to dry.  After it dries the paint is sanded away so that the surface is made by what is left of the paint.  This serves a dual purpose in that it creates luminosity in the paint while replicating the process of history: actions are remembered by how they are uncovered through time.  The process of making the paintings is an attempt to illuminate history through the reflection of time.