shannon gerard

When you were a kid, did you wish to get bigger as soon as possible? I remember things like wishing to grow tall enough to see over the counter at the public library, and weighing myself every day, feeling impatient to crest the 100 pound mark. I wrote letters to my future selves and sealed them in secret envelopes:
To Shannon Gerard at the Age of Sixteen.
To Shannon Gerard Upon First Kissing A Boy.
To Shannon Gerard When She Doubts of God’s Existence.

I couldn’t wait to leave the stupidities of high school behind and get on to what I really wanted to do in University— read piles and piles of novels FOR CREDIT!

Now I think what a terrible, impatient waste it was to hasten away from those shining years. I often long to go backwards— to spend again whole summers in the woods, to muck around in puddles, to seek out places in which the light is like the light was like when I was little.

Time is weird.

I once read an article in which the author suggested that, at the age of 21, our lives are conceptually half-over because our perception of time so radically shifts around the time we are sophomores. I found that idea so puzzling until I started using crochet as a research methodology.

Crochet, unlike anything else, demonstrates the perfect math of the universe. I have used it to mimic biological patterns inherent to plant life, to model human anatomy, and even to lull myself, by its soothing repetition, into a more peaceful state of mind.

Now I’m trying to crochet my mind around perceptions of time.

The above animation is a fledgling new project (still untitled) in which I’m experimenting with hyperbolic crochet, stop-motion, and narrative in an attempt to represent people’s life experiences in the form of these weird, lumpy time maps.

The details are still a bit dodgy, but I will share more as I work out the syntax of the crochet patterns with more clarity. Since I’m giving an artist talk and crochet demo at Sheridan College tomorrow, I’m throwing this first animation out into the world so I can talk about it with the students.

Yeah, time is totally weird.