Time

Inner Workings Finalized Sketch

In response to those who have objected to my integrating steampunk elements into this piece, I want to address a bit. While there is just steampunk for steampunk's sake (Claire's halloween costume for example. :) ), I feel that this piece is not in that category. At a glance it is swiftly slotted into what we all conceive of as "steampunk" these days because ANYTHING with clockwork is automatically put into that genre now.

What this piece is about, and what I hoped the title would convey, was not simply just jumping on the steampunk-wagon. It's a juxtaposition of man-made vs. natural and how the two flow in and out of each other (a common theme in my other works as well). It is the imposition of human conception of time parceled out into cycles of seconds and minutes, with the natural diurnal rhythms that exist regardless of our recording and observation of. The pendulum arc of the girl on the swing is an echo of this rhythm as well.

But also, however random nature seems to be, when you come down to the building blocks, at its heart nature is a vast, fantastic, incredible machine which manifests itself over and over in geometric and mathematical ways. There is a strange tie of such hard physical science to subjective beauty and life. When that becomes most evident is at that juncture where we meet the natural world.

Our bodies are aware of time on a level that our minds have more difficulty grasping. We have internal biological rhythms that coincide with the moon each month, and with the flow of day and night. I mentioned a month ago about Claire's first recognition of the moon in the sky, and it was a comment that Dana made that night about how she seemed to know it already that gave an initial spark to this concept. Even barely knowing the word "moon" and never having laid eyes on it, her physical body was already attuned to it and the cycles of time.