What is the shape of a memory? A novel? A person? Time?

Hi friends,

Last weekend my family and I went to the Emerson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY. There were two exhibitions that caught our eye. The first was Manuel Matias, Alphabet City Chronicles. To describe Matias’s art is not to capture the full feelings it inspired in me, but I’ll try. The final paragraph in the statement on the wall says,

[Matias] reflects on the dizzying process of gentrification in his old neighborhood that has now displaced most of his neighbors and replaced the corner bodegas and record stores with artisanal markets and luxury boutiques. In 2019, Matias turned to creating miniature tableaus of these disappearing streetscapes. His tiny replica of a hyperrealistic garbage can that conjured the sights (and smells) of his childhood was the first of an ever-expanding series of sculptures that grow from kernels of memory embellished with humor, activism, and wry social commentary. Alphabet City Chronicles invites viewers both to imagine entering Matias’ miniature worlds and to reflect on their own memories and experiences.

Matias’s hyperrealistic miniatures do indeed replicate perfectly the places and items they represent—with an uncanny accuracy. What’s not captured in the description above is their almost childlike quality, like a project a kid might do for school to show where they come from. This is not at all to dismiss Matias’s talent or level of craft. The works are incredibly detailed but also somewhat intentionally crude or raw, evoking the sensation that you’re looking at a child’s obsessive attempt to hold onto something deeply meaningful, even as it’s slipping away.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up on Long Island and spent a lot of time in New York City during the period Matias’s sculptures capture, but viewing his work both moved and disoriented me, turning time into a thin veil between me and the pieces. As a white person from a lower-middle-class family, I never experienced the specific kind of loss Matias is expressing in his work, but as he intended, it caused me to reflect deeply on my own memories and experiences—all of the people and places that have slipped through my fingers over the past five decades, despite my best attempts to hold onto them.

And yet, this is one of the powers of art. It allows us to revisit these people and places, to understand they’re never really gone.

Relatedly, the second exhibition my family and I were taken with was A Day Without a Clock, which asks the question, “What is time without a clock?”

This exhibition follows DeepTime Collective’s immersive museum-wide day event . . . on June 6, 2024. The exhibition features ceramic alternative timekeeping devices, ephemera from performances that visualize the shape of time, and artwork generated during a day of participatory events coauthored with diverse community partners. When combined, these alternative timekeeping objects and participatory activities reorient our relationship to time. 

There were so many things that captured my imagination here, but the one I want to write about is the scribbling on the walls: various community members’ answers to the question, “What is the shape of time?”

What is the shape of time?

As I took in their answers and visual representations, I thought about the craft book I’ve been reading, Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison. The novel I’m writing is narrated by four different characters, all in first person. As I’ve been considering Alison’s different narrative structures, it’s occurred to me that four narrators mean four different opportunities for narrative approach, even within one overarching structure.

This has led me to think about narrative structure as central to character and voice. We all know people who talk in circles or who take turns here and there before finally arriving at a point. And people who like to build suspense, feeding us bits of information before announcing the big reveal. And of course people who have no time for theatrics or niceties. These are integral parts of what we consider to be people’s personalities or voices.

Likewise, as I scanned the walls in this exhibition, I thought about my characters’ relationships to time. Who has time? Who doesn’t? It’s a luxury after all. So what does that say about each of my characters, and how does it affect the way they tell their stories?

As I got back to work this week, I was excited to explore this and I hope it inspires you a bit too. Meanwhile, I urge you to go out and see some art. Until next time!

Yours,

Jen