The Time Travel of Art

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In January 1998 the US release of the film Sliding Doors changed my life. It’s the first time that I can recall a movie so succinctly putting into image and story, the challenges of the conundrum of human choice versus circumstance. The questions I would often find myself mulling over as I laid awake staring at the ceiling from the comfort of my bed were about “choices” I had made. I put choices here in quotes because at the time they felt so intense and true. As if, the choice was a choice. I had not yet learned about the reality of constrained choices, I had not yet succumbed to bouts of nihilism. I, like countless humans before, wondered all the time about what was within the realm of our control, through making choices, versus what the universe had in store for us— as in our destiny. I was a sophomore in high school, determined to either live the destiny I imagined (fame and fortune) or fight my way into my destiny through my choices by whatever means possible. So when this film showed the split of two trajectories - two tracks as the trailer alludes - it became my possibility model to begin thinking about the choices I made and whether things would be different if for different circumstances. I haven’t seen the film since probably 1998, though the concept has permeated popular culture, with my favorite most recent homage when Abbi and Ilana have a Sliding Doors episode as the opener for the final and fourth season of Broad City. The concept of sliding doors, was probably also the first time I was aware of the idea that there could be two universes with another version of me living a life that I was not able to access, and this, what I would later learn to refer to as the concept of the multiverse, is what I would hungrily seek out deeper understanding of decades later.

What this really has to do with, is my current obsession with time. I think about time a lot. Maybe even, all the time. And then, things related to time come to me. An Ojibwe friend told me that sometimes things must come to us at the right time. I’ve loved that thought ever since he told me that. It assuages my need for insatiable learning, the black hole within me that wants to suck everything into my realm, damning consequences as they are sure to meet me because of my greedy spirit. Thinking, it would appear, is one of my favorite states of being. And, like any tension of opposites, is only most delicious when I find release valves to stop the constant chatter that happens in my mind. Those brief moments of meditation when the mind finally simply can exist without working is part of my current hero’s quest. I like to believe that one of the versions of my multiverse selves has figured this out - or at least is the inverse of me in this timeline— more chill than obsessed.

Self Portrait at 5, 10, and 41 (WIP?) Acrylic and spray paint on canvas (2022)

And I have good reason to believe that other version of me is on a track somewhere because even science says the popular and conventional ideas about time as this like linear and constant thing are probably completely limited by the stories we tell about it! It almost makes me want to become a physicist even though my mind totally shuts down when I start to think about these theories. As if I’m fatigued by the mere thought of attempting to try to think through how to make sense of these theorems, numbers, and letters signifying something beyond what my senses tell me to already be true. However this fuzzy understanding of the math makes me feel, it kind of spurs me to believe I’m up for the challenge of contorting my brain into a new set of exercises. And I know I could do it if I really put my spirit into it, because that is what I did with my art making, so I know I have it within me.

When I was younger, laying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling I used to also imagine I could move objects with my mind. I was convinced that levitation was possible for me. That if I put my mind to it, I could lift myself up above my bed. Minimally I should be able to use my mind to draw an object from another surface to my hand. Arm outstretched, open palmed, I would focus all my energy on the object and will the air around it to lift it over to me. Recognizing that this skill was probably like the extreme level of mastery I would settle for a slight rumble of the object in place. To see evidence that I was exerting some kind of force onto it, even if I couldn’t whisk it through the air with just my mind. I’d convince myself that it moved just a nano-millimeter, barely perceptible to my eye. But I did, as I would then lower my arm in complete, and utter, exhaustion from the mental exertion. I would check out books from the library on astral projection and take in the words and diagrams, knowing that I could do this, while also (smartly) worrying about what would happen if I traveled too far away from my reclined body and my tether broke? What would happen to me if I couldn’t make it back to my body? To this day, I’m convinced this fear is at the root of why I haven’t been able to successfully levitate, move objects with my mind, or master astral projection.

These sorts of questioning of reality help me understand madness - help me reach the edge of it myself and wonder if there is a time when I won’t be able to pull back from the cliff. And yet, I know I am not the only one playing with time. The number of time-lapse reels on TikTok and Instagram demonstrate our uneasiness with the passage of time in lock-step with it’s actual occurrence. I wonder if we long to see things sped up to satiate our impatience with our impermanence. Only slow motion is applied to things that pass by too quickly, like an epic fall when gravity insists on teaching someone a lesson. A man slipping down icy stairs, a woman losing her bikini top on a water park slide require a rewatch loop of the malady over and over, so as to really take in this one moment of time. I can still feel the bang of my head on the concrete sidewalk when I slipped on black ice stepping up to get onto the bus. It reverberated when I levitated for a few brief seconds before falling right onto my back on an icy patch by our truck several Januaries ago. I am a time traveller when I can be present enough to notice.

January seems like the perfect time to reflect on time. The new calendar year signifies new starts, or reflections on goals and what may lay ahead. In the northern most parts of the northern hemisphere it feels counter to the frozen environment outside my window every day. A few leaves remain rustling in the aspens onside my front door, long dried and withered, they too are time travelers with their own feats of levitation to come. I’m trying this new thing where I’m a traveller without a map, I guess that would make me an explorer? I’m exploring the contours of time and space to see what lessons I am able to glean in these times. I want to know why sometimes time moves so quickly, and other times it’s so slow to change. I probably never will know, but I’ll settle for witnessing. For the reminder that it doesn’t need to make sense. That I don’t need to make sense of it. That it can be, and so can I. I can allow for the many me’s I’ve met and are soon to come. For the time being. For the time granted. For the time traveled.

What I’m Reading

The Family Izquierdo by Rubén Degollado

Having been drawn to the beautiful cover art of this book on the “new” shelf at my local library, I was thrilled to find that not only were the stories compelling, gripping even, but that Degollado’s writing style is rich with layers. The dialogue feels like you are a fly on the wall at one of the Izquierdo family pachangas. The interweaving of characters across three generations making a life in the Texas of today, inspires a loose gathering of short stories that focus on different members of the families all connected to the Izquierdo line. Though the narrative threads come surprisingly to the readers. Italicized storylines of the abuelitos  serve as introductions to each section of the text, and the chapters smoothly transition to a new character's point of view like a video cross fade. I was enthralled by the world Degollado creates which includes saintly acts and brujería infused tales of love, life, belonging, and longing. My favorite read of 2023 so far (and in case you’re wondering…it’s of the eight I’ve made it through so far this year, so it did have some competition.) My only critique is that a family this size would have queer family members present, and their absence is marked by either silence or relies on the reader's own imaginative conjecture of their presence, which you know... I certainly wondered about as I read these interwoven tales.

Artist Offerings

• I am a subscriber of Jay Sanborn's newsletter and their most recent missive was a beautiful, timely meditation on Scraps, and I've revisited it several times since I read it. 
• I often think "they just don't make things like they used to" all the time, and it turns out there may be more fact than fiction to that feeling based on Izzie Ramirez's exploration of "badly made products." 
• I'm a major fan of Yvette Mayorga's paintings and this article helps explain why her use of symbols connects experiences across time
• An interview with Yayoi Kusama at 94 inspires me to think about what I might be creating when I get to be her age!

Creative Ritual

Saturday I installed paintings at Calendula Gallery where I am renting wall space. The Gallery is located in downtown St. Paul and I intend to have an in-person event in the coming months there - let me know if you’d be interested in collaborating - a reading, spoken word, a talent show…perhaps? Something fun to warm us in the tumultuous months of spring! Also, the gallery is open on weekends so stop in, tell your friends, and check out my work and the other works of art in the gallery, all for sale! I’ve been busing working on new paintings, ongoing commissions, and the typical end of the fiscal year’s preparations for tax season have been keeping me busy. I submitted some of my paintings for inclusion in a geography journal, and managed to get a couple of other applications submitted and in progress. My Kitchen Saints (the remaining which are now for sale at Celendula) were also featured on Pigeon Review. My biggest news, is that last week I found out I was awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant for funding for the production of THIS NEWSLETTER. I’m so grateful for the support, and it will enable me to do a new segment for this project thanks to the taxpayers of Minnesota. Stay tuned!

Questions to ponder

When have you time travelled? 
How is time impacting your life? 
What relationship would you like to cultivate with time? 
How can a multiverse framework empower you to be more expansive? 

Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time. 

-KCF

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