TIMEKEEPER'S OPUS
TIMEKEEPER'S OPUS
The Past: About Time Figurative Studies
Bronze with Gold Leaf, 2023
W x L x H
23 x 11 x 10 inches
Just one edition.
Laura Teste
ABOUT TIME: TIMEKEEPER’S OPUS (The Past) is a confident Maestra. She conducts a long gold-leafed train wildly unfurling from her own dress. The figure keeps time for the opus of what is remembered and what is recorded. Testé said, “I would argue that history – like memory – exists in first person. I saw Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ (2023) while working on this clay. Just as Bernstein embraced each masterpiece, we humans convert the past into convincing symphonies.” TIMEKEEPER’S OPUS transforms a blurry idea into a grace note where everyone’s breath catches at once.
All three sculptures from the ABOUT TIME series feature a very deliberate compositional geometry between the figures’ attention and their billowing outsized capes. Testé traces each swirling force with goldleaf stressing the dynamic potential of the future, present, and past. She further connects the series with musical metaphors as titles.
The ABOUT TIME series was part of “Heroines 2024” a Laura Testé solo show hosted by the University of Michigan Taubman Health Center.
The Timekeeper’s Opus
The crowd murmurs and smells of rain,
Clutching playbills rushing in vain.
Watch your step the usher warns.
An aisle light guides and a promise forms.
The past? We’ve met a time or two.
I think she comes here for the view,
She sheds her gloves with practiced ease,
Seated with students and retirees.
The timekeeper pulls out her pen,
In the program jots where and when.
Do you and I think to take notes?
To mark this night of fancy damp coats.
The emcee thanks patrons who paid,
Last whispers wisp, chandeliers fade.
The timekeeper taps her high heel,
Nodding, knowing how fine we feel.
But is there more? The past I mean.
Moments and moods of our mise-en-scene?
Applause and cheer, bravo to this.
The roar of life too soon I’ll miss.
What noise I make, I cry encore.
I wave my hopes wishing for more.
The crowd conflicted cheers, weeps, and mourns,
And throws to the stage petals and thorns.
