When I got to graduate school my professor wanted me to have a theme to guide my work. I had been out of the habit of making art for 8 years. I explored a number of topics but none of them impressed me very much. I finally settled on the topic of time. How time takes things away from you but leaves other things behind. I thought that was very interesting and worth exploring. My professor didn’t like it much. He said it was too difficult to convey visually. I decided to pursue it anyway. I started making drawings as if I were time. First making marks then taking parts away then drawing more and erasing more. Then I started including objects that time had already influenced. Postal canceling stamps became great symbols of time. They documented an object was at a certain place at a certain time. But if the cancellation mark was separated from the object, you would have the documentation that it was at a certain place and time but you no longer knew what the object was. Time had taken that away from you. Envelopes were another great discovery. The canceled envelope was a great visual and being empty made a statement about time. Photographs where time had removed the identity of who was in the photograph were another good find. I also incorporated pieces of newsprint because time alters it causing it to discolor over time. I also found stop motion photographs documenting moments in time. The drawings were fun to do and I thought they worked very well. Put all these things together and narratives can be made.
Time Drawing No 1 – Time No 1
Time Drawing No 2 – The pole vaulter
Time Drawing No 3 – The blue envelope
The time drawings began to evolve. Frontage is a process where you can transfer xerox images by putting lacquer thinner on the back of the xerox then placing the image on a piece of drawing paper then burnishing the back of the xerox. The images transferred with strong detail and the color was very close to graphite so I could draw back into the image. This gave me a lot of freedom to develop more complex images. I found lots of images that brought a lot of symbolism and suggested different meanings. These images developed without any plan or design. I just let them evolve. I also worked large, 24×36 inches. The titles were taken from notations on the image. Their meaning has been lost in time.
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In looking at time and the effects of time I became aware of a discovery that was amazing. In 1938 a fish was discovered that was thought to be extinct 65 million years ago. Dating older than the dinosaurs. It had lobed fins only found in extinct species. They inhabited deep oceans up to 2300 feet. They can be huge up to 6.5 feet and have an average lifespan of 60 years. They are remarkably unchanged from the fossil record. It’s as though time passed them by. I was moved by these creatures. It is not a surprise an image or 2 would find their way into my portfolio.
Coelacanth lost
What time forgot
