What is Time?

Cliff Pueblo
26 x 14 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$820

Growing up surrounded by ancient history I have often scoffed at time. I have seen it as an artificial construct. Or as my father put it, "a gentleman's agreement." And to that end I was raised to always be punctual to whatever time was agreed upon. To do less would be disrespectful.  To be late is to say your time is more valuable than the others'.

But time on that daily level is so short. What about time on the cosmic scale? Or all times at once as Einstein theorized. In the midst of this pandemic and self-isolation I am beginning to totally get what Einstein meant. Certainly the hours, maybe even the days do not matter. There are no appointments, gentlemen's agreements, to which I must be held.

I have self-isolated before it was the thing to do. As a resident of a tourist area I always, like the Cheshire Cat, hide myself away during spring break. Now all of us should be doing the same. Forty-three days for me. Or two paintings. Garden preparation. Countless games of solitaire. It would be at least six e-books but I seem unable to concentrate on them. Instead I have been sucked into the timeless words created on canvas.

Rose Moon Rising
20 x 30 Watercolor on Artists Canvas
$1350

Or the stack of sketches upon my mat table from which I must choose the beginning for the next. I have been drawn back into that place or places beyond the beginning of time.

Glorious Dawn
16 x 30 Mixed Media on Canvas
$1200

Back to when what mattered was the sun coming up or the moon rising. And through the process of painting Cliff Pueblo I found myself wondering if all the people who had literally set up house on the cliffs or mesas had not abandoned them because of a warring tribe or a drought but because of disease. Did they flee to avoid a deadly pandemic? They exist through time and on all continents. Did they associate the sick and dying with communal living and go back to isolated huts or hogans on the mesas. Among the Navajo, the Dine' peoples, a hogan is abandoned if someone dies in it.

Were they smarter than we are? Us with our gigantic cruise ships and huge metropolitan areas? Skyscrapers which history has already proven there is no escape. And yet we seem to be drawn together in masses and building as high as we can go on cliffs or mesas or steel.

Maybe I am going mad.