Cosmic Clockwork Comet

For
Quincy Junior High School “Celebration of Education Sculpture Series” Funded by:
The Moorman Foundation & Arts Quincy

It has been said that time is an event more than anything else. We remember events, we usually don’t remember time passing as in the ticking of a clock. We usually don’t remember our hours of uneventful boredom unless we find some important thought momentarily hidden and then revealed within our boredom. Perhaps, this is when and how the sculpture began.

Halley’s Comet and the fact that it is periodic and only visible to us every 75-76 years; provides a beginning, which in and of itself, is an event. The comet is on a far reaching elliptical orbit, a self-referential timed event, chronicled historically, beginning in 239 BCE in China.

Mark Twain who was born and raised very near Quincy famously said that he was born on the arrival of Halley’s Comet in 1835 but would probably not be on Earth to witness the return. This proved to be true as he did pass away within the year of the return.

Our perception of all things is contingent upon our ability to see, our individual vision. Things that are unseen or left out are many times as valuable to our understanding as what is visible. Some objects mirror other objects within our field of vision. An object like the comet is only occasionally visible. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t there it just means we lack the long range vision to see it. We do know however, it’s out there physically but imperceptible.

I’ve incorporated two purposeful dates into the sculpture: 2020 the year of the placement of the sculpture and 2061 the return date of the comet. The students attending Quincy Junior High School today may very well see the return of Halley’s Comet, it’s unlikely I will. This will give me and Mark Twain something in common.

What the world will look like in 41 years is of course unknowable and un-seeable today. This is at the core of the sculpture. The seen and the unseen, the thing and the no-thing.

I have incorporated Chinese and Japanese characters into the piece. For those of you who read either language the meanings of those characters are obvious. For those who don’t, the symbols Ice, Jade (precious rock), Chaos, and No-Thing can be found. Now you see them, now you don’t. A comet is nothing more than a fast moving chunk of Ice and Rock sculpted by space and time.

The word COMET is disguised within the piece. The letter E is my personal favorite as it has missing elements. Our marvelous brains fill in the elements with speed and efficiency. We, in a real sense, make the absence make sense. When we complete the visualization of the missing pieces, we mirror the comet metaphorically. The Cosmic Clockwork Comet is rich in informational threads woven into a unified matrix of art, science, language, music, engineering, literature, astronomy, transparency and my leaving things out purposefully.

A possible future event may be the assembly of a book covering the beginning the middle fabrication and the installation of the sculpture on site. The matrix may be revealed between the covers of this book. There certainly is enough material and I believe this covers it for now.

J. Jenkins Arts © 2020