The artwork that I chose was Mr. Time by Rachel Feinstein. According to the plaque beside the sculpture, Mr. Time was based on a drawing the artist’s son, Francis Currin, made when he was ten years old. It’s a large human-sized sculpture that still maintains the idea and feeling of being hand-drawn. I feel as though it constitutes conceptual art because there are many different takeaways with the sculpture; also, the sculpture itself is made from non-traditional, “found materials”. This artwork is unique because you could make the argument that the sculpture is mimesis because it is an imitation of Feinstein’s son’s drawing but that the idea behind the art (both the drawing and the sculpture) is very clearly abstract. I think the idea of the sculpture is how as an adult (and, more importantly, a parent) there is never enough time to do anything that you need or want to do. If you look closely at what Mr. Time’s body is made of, you’ll notice playing cards, die, guns, money, wine glasses, beer, and sheets of paper. I think this a statement about how there never seems to be enough time in a day and the stress that comes from that.  Mr. Time’s body is made up of these items, almost as a way of drawing attention to the self-destructive ways in which people may attempt to combat that stress (gambling, drinking). What the sculpture is trying to say, through the imagery of the working clock serving as the head, is that even when we find a way to forget about our obligations and de-stress, the obligations that we tried to ignore haven’t gone anywhere, Time hasn’t stopped and the world hasn’t stopped turning.

I think the sculpture is trying to make the viewer assess and think about time and how they spend theirs. I think it wants the viewer to stop and reflect on their obligations and how they fulfill them (or avoid them). In a sense, it forces the reader to think about the way they spend their day and, more abstractly, how they spend their time. Mr. Time’s message is that time doesn’t stop ticking, no matter how much you may try to avoid or ignore that fact; time is constantly moving forward and that fact isn’t changed by whether or not you spend it doing what you need to or procrastinating. Feinstein wants viewers to do some introspection and be more cognizant of how they’re spending their time. I think having a working clock serving a function in the sculpture helps to portray the idea of time being important. It’s the head, the face of Mr. Time; the clock is placed as being above, literally and figuratively, everything else in the sculpture. The fact that it is a working clock, as well, helps to drive home the purpose of the sculpture. During an initial cursory glance, you don’t realize that the clock is ticking, until you look more closely and pay attention to the artwork, which is an apt metaphor when you consider how many people live their lives. They don’t realize how much time they’ve spent (or wasted) until they look more closely at their lives and the world around them.