Time Is Of The Essence

Time Is Of The Essence

A Collaboration With Marianne Rossant

Two hours. One hundred and twenty minutes. Anything might be done in the time. Anything. Nothing. Oh, he had had hundreds of hours, and what had he done with them? Wasted them, split the precious minutes as though his reservoir were inexhaustible. -Aldous Huxley

Using the luscious colors of food to make a picture has been on my mind for sometime. I think that it has crossed the mind of anyone who passionately loves to cook and who has at some point, stained their hands from slicing a beet. I proposed the project to my dear friend Marianne and of course she was on board. The following is a documentation of our process and a celebration of color.

Marianne chose vibrant colors and basic ingredients to make her afternoon salad. They are as raw and basic as the pigments I was working with. She also added crickets and quail eggs to the salad, saying that she is always searching for new protein sources. I am including the picture of the quails because in her own words, “we need to know where our food comes from, we need to see the animal.” So true! If we are going to eat an animal, we need to honor its existence and life and see its whole body and not just its parts. Below, is a window into Marianne’s process.

I believe that there is always something to be learned in everything that happens in our life and this collaboration was no different. I had never cooked food to use its color. And when I painted the color onto the paper, I struggled with how weak the pigments were and maneuvering them on the paper. My first time transferring these bright colored liquids onto the paper proved to be quite cumbersome.  I went through several emotional processes until I finally gave in to the material and allowed the colors to take charge of their own life. I pulled back from struggling. And this is when my lesson unraveled itself to me.

I experimented with these pigments and realized that after sometime, the colors had changed. They faded and became a different visual experience. Time played a key role in their transformation. The above images were taken 2 hours apart. The sensations of the initial visual marks were long gone. This collaboration became a lesson about time for me. How we spend time, who we spend our time with, and how vitally important it is to appreciate and value our time now like never before. I missed my physical time with my friend. I wanted to enjoy her salad, savor its flavors and see her laughing face. “I wish you could taste this salad, “ she said. I treasure my connections with friends and amid the current governmental restrictions, quality time is everything. What is truly important and essential about life? Time has no patience, so what is life without risks and courage and experiencing the unknown? My lesson is that our time is now because as they say, tomorrow is never promised. We must create now, do now, enjoy now and not distance ourselves from each other but unite. Let’s us not allow dreams to fade away but keep their flame alive. I want to not live in fear or live in a false sense of safely and security. I want to fearlessly be in the present of all that is living because there is nothing more regretful than having lived a life, waiting to live for tomorrow.