Firmament, the second painting in The Seven Laughters of God, has the young artist on a diving board, suspended over a pool at night. The Los Angeles nightscape stretches into the distance. A nude woman behind the artist looks to the heavens above, where sparks from his torch mix with the constellations (these are actually painted fairly accurately). He looks down with some apprehension into the waters of the glowing pool. In some Judeo-Christian creation texts, God is not happy with his achievement in creating the Waters, and our hero is perplexed by the possibilities here as well. The figures are stiff, “Egyptian,” and her hand reaches around below his belly, threatening another meaning to “Firmament”.