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Time is a concept; it exists only as the interval between events.
"The structures that humankind has created to keep track of time are very specific. We use the rotation of Earth to count years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. There is beauty in this regularity and organization; at the same time, our perception of time is not always so consistent. There is a discrepancy between how we experience time and how we notate it.
I became interested in these ideas when I began weaving. Each pass of thread is unique at the moment it is passed, as each life experience is unique as it happens. The accumulation of events creates a piece of fabric in which the individual strand is only a part of the whole. Each pass is different, but the fabric is created with only one thread.
I use imagery in my work that reflects both a literal and symbolic record of the process involved. I use marks that reference the ways we record events -- graphs, charts, maps, journals, and ways in which nature records the passage of time. I am interested in the difference between how nature makes marks of progress and how we interpret it. I am also interested in what we choose to record and why. As soon as the present occurs, it becomes the past, so which records are important to keep? How do those records inform us, if at all? What is important to keep track of and what is done for the sake of doing? What is controlled and what is left to chance?
T.S. Eliot, in his poem Four Quartets, states, “History is a pattern of timeless moments”. My work considers the timelessness of moments and the importance of how time is notated and controlled." ~ Melissa Whitwam
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