Seven years ago I discovered antique clock cases as a format for artistic exploration. I focused on time, timing and the devices we use to orient ourselves in the world and the universe. The paradox of a constant, fixed unit of time and our fluid and elastic personal sense of it is implicit in my work.
As I explored these ideas I realized that all our experiences are a measure of time. Playing a chess game, climbing a flight of stairs, watching a butterfly flit across the yard, these could all be units of time that measure other experiences. We could, for example, define the length of a day by the number of chess games which could be played. Using minutes, hours, days and months is a more expedient way to measure the collective sense of our lives. As an artist, I find other measures much more descriptive and evocative.
In exploring my expanding notions of time and space, I also found myself compressing them in ever smaller clock cases. This reminded me of dreaming. In dreams we take long, complicated journeys in which past, present and future coexist. Dreams distort and alter our sense of time and space yet seem real and rational. All this takes place in our subconscious minds, physically housed within the limited confines of our heads.
Probably because I find architecture is so visually compelling, the clock cases ceased to be the housing for clock movements and became architecture. I started reflecting architectural elements of the exterior within the cases, yielding a new construct in which thoughts and images of a lifetime converge. Mirroring dreams, these images make sense on an emotional level, but can defy the chronology of our daily lives.