A seminar class called Measured Representation asks us to select a text and derive a drawing. The text I chose is from the 2010 Pulitzer novel, 'Tinkers":
"Lay the clock facedown. Unscrew the screws; maybe just pull them from the cedar or walnut case, the threads long since turned to wood dust dusted from mantels. Lift off the back of the clock like the lid of a treasure chest. Bring the long-armed jeweler’s lamp closer, to just over your shoulder. Examine the dark brass. See the pinions gummed up with dirt and oil. Look at the blue and green and purple ripples of metal hammered, bent, torched. Poke your finger into the clock; fiddle the escape wheel (every part perfectly named -- escape; the end of the machine, the place where the energy leaks out, breaks free, beats time). Stick your nose closer; the metal smells tannic. Read the names etched onto the works: Ezra Bloxham-1794; Geo. E. Tiggs-1832; Thos. Flatchhart-1912. Lift the darkened works from the case. Lower them into ammonia. Lift them out, nose burning, eyes watering, and see them shine and star through your tears. File the teeth. Punch the bushings. Load the springs. Fix the clock. Add your name."
A few antique clocks from the Pickens jockey lot and some teeny tools from Home Depot have me scrunching up my eyes to dismantle the metal and springs, scan in all the components, and document them. In the next few weeks, these technical representations will be combined with a collaged scene which represents a second selected text. The idea is to merge, via invented sections and delicate layers, the dual sense of time: its illusory and/yet rigid nature.
