"There exists in this city a particular spot that holds a deep interest for me at least for now. You arrive at this spot by traveling north on Sepulveda Blvd. in the left lane about 60 feet before reaching the intersection of Palms Blvd.

"It's a dip, or rather a scrape in the asphalt toward the right side of the lane — a dip your right tire will hit if you are correctly in the middle of the lane. It's always irritating to hit this spot while going 35 miles per hour or faster.

"But it's not just another dip in the road. Look at it and it begins to have its own integrity. It's flame-shaped, like a fireball or meteorite crashing to Earth on this very place on Sepulveda Blvd.

"I become more alert nearing this spot, feeling like I'm in some kind of hot zone of the city. To get the best effects from this depression in the street, when possible, I drive as slow as can be done, say 5 to 8 mph or even slower, letting my tires roll over it like a little love-nudge, kissing the inner side of my treads.

"For something considered a roadway disturbance, it sure has a powerful amusement for me."

A few days later, he pulls into a strip mall parking lot off Palms Blvd. He looks fit, displaying his trademark wry smile.

In his work, Ruscha has created icons of simple city things — gasoline stations, the streets themselves. (Click here to see some of his artwork.)

"Everything you see on the street I'm influenced by," he once said, "the iconography of the city, the way the city is."

So on this morning, Ruscha goes off to look at a dip in the road, an "emotional sweet spot" shaped like a fireball. It's a street in Los Angeles [in Palms/Westside Village].

As seen by Ed Ruscha:

"The city road department is always cleaning up things, always repaving. And I wonder, 'How long will that thing last?' I won't be heartbroken if they take it away, but I still feel it's some sort of little nerve ending for me. When I drive home I think, 'Uh-oh, I'll be going by the little crater.' "

He laughs.

"I would drive north in that lane. I would hit that, and it would be jarring and unpleasant. Every time I was in that lane, I would begin anticipating the hole coming up, and I would just swing around it so I would never have to hit it.

“This became kind of a focal point in my mind — that maybe this is some kind of spiritual hot spot for me. I would be driving up here and think, 'Uh-oh, here comes the little crater.' I would be ready for it every night. And then I would fantasize about it. You know, people say there are spiritual lines in the world — all cross each other. Maybe this is where they all cross for me."

He laughs again.

"It doesn't have much to say visually. It's not making any kind of statement. Except it does look like it's a product of some kind of accident. . . .

"There it just sits. If you examined it up close, part of it is made of tar; maybe they tried to fill it or something.

“It's another emotional trinket in my life. Where I might focus on something that's insignificant, that doesn't have any communal impact. It's got nothing to say to society except that it's a focal point for me. . . . It's one of those strange little phenomena that has its importance overblown. I do that in my own brain: I'm making it more important than it really is.

"When I'm driving up toward it, I see all kinds of things: what appears to be like a check mark. And the upstroke is on the incline, going up to meet the roadway, and there's this little pocket there that's lower — it sort of has a steady slope. You can even see the trail of a mark there, not a bump but something.

“You want to look into the scientific reasons for that thing. Maybe some heavy equipment like a bulldozer was dropped there. A machine! It was a mistake, and they just left it that way. But I'll be checking up on this. If the city does clear it up, maybe another one will happen to me.”

In addition to drawing, Ruscha has painted, worked in photography, with prints, created books and films. His first book, "Twenty-six Gasoline Stations," came out in 1963, the year of his first solo show at Ferus Gallery on La Cienega Blvd.

"It's a personal vision," he says. "When it comes to visuals, artists are maybe more investigative or curious.

"Artists live in the world of the visual, and I suppose that they see things that stockbrokers don't see."