I have one compartment that makes and one that thinks. They are separate to the extent that I don’t make art to illustrate my thoughts. I don’t say ‘right, now I’m going to make something about COVID, or State violence, or death’. I’m not interested in art as metaphor, as illustration.

Ive been thinking a lot about Time. The only tools I have to do this are my senses, sight in particular, the brain and the English language.

I make a simple premise whilst looking at an object.

It could be any object but lets say its a tree. It helps if i can see the tree now, at the time of thinking.

There is a tree. The tree is there now.

Then I ask a question

Where is the tree tomorrow?

Immediately I am constrained in my thinking by the way English describes time.

I want to consider where the tree is while it is waiting for me to see it tomorrow, given that we view time as linear.

It seems to me there are two possibilities.

One, it (and all things including ourselves) comes into existence in the present, and ceases to exist simultaneously as the present passes.

Two, it always exists, along with all other objects including ourselves.

In the first case, what does that coming into existence look like?

In the second, time does not exist at least not in a linear way.

In both scenarios language doesn’t help me to get my head around the implications. It seems its a question not of when is now, when is the past, when is the future? But where is it?

I’m writing this months after making this drawing. But I’m only getting round to updating this blog now. I made it as usual without much thought beyond what is required to act. And I look at the drawing and the photo i took at the time to see if it helps me where language does not.

Carbon and fixative on tracing paper (Jan, 2021)