Counting the Hours

People spend their time lamenting the quickness of time based on an assumption that it passes faster than we want. Statements like, “I cannot believe it is fall already,” and “They have already put out the holiday decorations,” are common. What they really mean is their notion of time passing is a feeling beyond their control and desire for it to linger. Although not emotionally we agree that time is a fixed measurement and we use it to mark events in our life.

What does this mean to us as individuals? Apart from seconds, minutes, hours, months, and years, how do we experience the passing of time? It is accepted that our mechanical measurement of a shared sunrise/sunset existence is inaccurate. All of this lacks the necessary emotional component that is true to the way that we experience life; the clock and calendar are only tools.

Our experience is a consideration of birthdays, work weeks, life/death, waiting, and doing. How we mark time, with still objects can provide us with a sense of eternal racing, and at others times a sense of endless waiting or rest. Notes in a calendar of past events is accepted, by some, as the pinnacle of accuracy for historic truths.

Considered the work in Counting the Hours as sections that define remembrance, activity in process, and the moments of waiting. Bruce Adams’ The Treason of Archaeology: This is not a Pipe #2, and others offer a reflection on history in both practice and art. The work of artists Marion Faller and Hollis Frampton provide us with movement spanning time. Frank Duffy, Grace McKendry, and others continue this theme in their work. While our most constant experience is presented by Amanda Besl and Reginald Marsh. We linger, wait, and pause.