Time passes and I am still sitting here, pen in hand, unable to speak. If only I could find a way to write about the things I don't remember.
2010
Installation and performance
The first incarnation of Time Passes was installed in the student-run By Us, For Us Gallery at Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle, Washington). The installation included several performances where I, the artist, sat in the Gallery and hand-wrote memories on unpieced quilt blocks. A few samples of the text follow.
Dear Martha,
I am having trouble beginning, as always. This is not as easy as I thought it would be, taking the time to sit and remember. ...
... I suppose my writing betrays a certain acute sense of loss. It is an idea that I am constantly fighting with - it is deep, dark hole, but it is also a very beautiful and poignant feeling (and, however strange this may sound, it is also somewhat sustaining).
I have felt this way for a while now - more precisely, for about the past six years. Since Carl lost half of his leg as a result of complications from a stroke, you have been much different too. Your lucidity has gradually declined to the point where now, you hear an imaginary radio station that only plays good music and has good news. At least this seems better that your mental state four years ago, when you were much more lucid but much more depressed. You also seem convinced that I am married and am carrying a child. That, at least, is not so arbitrary - I am practically married, and I have carried a child that is no longer with me.
Forgive me if I seem scattered. Memory can be an evasive beast. Forcing it is nearly impossible. If only I could find a way to write about all of the things I don't remember - not to bring them back, but to realize why I commit to memory the things I do. ...
... It seems inevitable for me to bring up the concept of sadness in this letter. It is, without question, the one feeling that drives me. Like the feeling of loss or longing, it is somewhat sustaining. Sadness is inescapable for everyone, but in my life it has been a pervasive theme.
What is sadness? For me, it is an evasive and deceptive beast, much like memory. Often when I feel sadness it seems to have no particular cause. At other times everything around me makes me sad - my body, the rain, the passing of time, a certain kind of light... the causes are innumerable. Where does this feeling come from, and where does it go once it leaves me?
In many ways I have the same relationship with beauty. It is transient, impossible to catch and hold, like sadness. Maybe they are actually the same feeling, just wearing different masks. ...
