Ready Time

On Kawara's One Million Years (Past and Future), since 1970

Today, tomorrow, later today, and tonight are all about time. It's time to get to the studio, now that I have more time to be there, or is it time to clean, move, look at art, go to openings, make dinner, read stories, bathe a kid, time to make money, save money, and then it's time to go to sleep. There's never enough time. Time is everything.

I asked several artists about their "studio time," and got some great answers. Everybody is trying to make art as much as possible. Almost everyone is trying to balance their time better. Most everyone thinks about making serious money, serious art and being a serious person all in good time.

In these discussions of time, I joked with a colleague that there seems to be a difference between being a serious artist and a serious person. A serious person makes a living (money) in an honest way, a serious artist doesn't make money. A really serious artist makes money through their art. This is problematic.

Then there is "ready time," which I am defining here as the art you're able to make right now. That might not be your paintings because they take too long to make, so it's your drawings. It might not be your sculpture because they cost too much to fabricate, so it's a situation you create instead. It might not be an entire show at a gallery, but rather a wall painting you make in an afternoon. What's your "ready time?" Gotta go.