Marking Time

Mixed media, beaded, embroidered and embellished vintage lace. Embossed metal and found objects.

​The name of this mixed media piece is "Marking Time". The medieval sense of time was the product of a very different way of thinking. The Book of Hours, private devotionals used to prayer the office or hours of the day, were guides to the suggested prayers for each time of day.
This piece is inspired by the Astronomical Clocks found in Europe that depicted the lunar phases, astrological calendars, and "labors of the month"*, or maps of what the agricultural society was doing in a given time of the year. Astrological clocks were meant to map out the solar system and its relationship to time and daily experience according to the way man viewed the cosmos in that time.
Inspired by the highly illumined manuscripts, the background for this time piece is a mixture of hand beaded, embroidered and vintage lace. The four elements, earth, air, wind and fire are expressed in Latin. Each miniature banner at the bottom of the piece contains a embossed metal reference to one of the times of prayer at assigned hours or offices of the day:  Matins (midnight), Lauds (dawn) Prime (6 a.m.), Terce (9 a.m.), Sext (noon), None (3 p.m.), Vespers 6 p.m.), and Compline (9 p.m.).
While the artwork is completely imaginary and not historical, the elements found within this construction all have some acknowledgment of the way medieval people might have thought about marking time.


*"Labors of the Month" were a phenological system of expressing what an agricultural society in Medieval times was doing at any given time of the year. Illuminated manuscripts from the period often illustrated common tasks a farmer would perform at a particular month or season.