Time As I See It
by Devon Melzer
Thursday March 19
7:00 - 8:30p
SALON | 224 Roebling St
Join us to celebrate the launch of Time As I See It and the process of making this seasonal calendar by Devon.
*Prints and Pre-orders available for purchase.
This calendar gathers several systems of time into one place: the solar year, lunar cycles, astrological seasons and the eight seasonal turning points. Rather than measuring productivity or deadlines, it attempts to visualize the energetic rhythm of the months. It can be used simply as a way to orient oneself into the larger movements of the year before stepping into the structures of modern time.
Artist Statement:
This calendar began with a feeling that the modern calendar, the one shaped by the demands of commerce and productivity, can stretch and shrink our time. It organizes our lives in ways that sometimes pull us away from natural rhythms and distribute our attention across deadlines and obligations.
I wasn’t trying to reject that system, we live within it. But I began wondering if there was a way to catch our energetic footing before stepping fully into those structures each month.
A visualization of different ways of measuring time.
I became curious about what it might look like to visualize the energetic footprint of the months through rhythms: solar cycles, lunar phases, astrological seasons, and the turning points of the year.
I gathered layers of time together through color.
As I was creating this, a final layer entered the work, adding the arc of human life moving within cosmic and seasonal time. My father passed during it’s making and one of the last things we did was to sit together while he watched me paint. Something he always loved. Seeing the world through my eyes.
For me, this is thick time, similar to listening to a song that holds many memories at once layered atop the present. Its cadence can’t really be measured.
This calendar is simply an offering: a way to orient ourselves in those larger rhythms before stepping back into the currencies of modern time. A moment to catch our feet beneath us before the wheel turns forward again.
