At CSU Fullerton, Hopkins became interested in the figurative nature of language, and began combining text with archetypal images that played with the structural nature of meaning.
At the same time, he began playing with the traditional "window" approach to painting by experimenting with alternative "window shapes". By the time of his MA show, he developed interacting shapes that played with right-brain and left-brain concepts. This interest in shapes eventually led to a more sculptural approach at Claremont Graduate University, along with a new "reductionism".