Time - There Was, There Is, There will
Origin...
I did this in 1998 and gave it to a very special friend. After many years, for various reasons, it was returned to me in 2022 in pristine condition. Back then, I had a dream of holding her hand which I then drew while we were on the beach in Dahab, Egypt and which I later incorporated into this final piece. When I created this, it felt like there was an outside force, an energy, that held my hand in the same way my hand is holding hers in the drawing. Enjoy the explanation of the story below and all the symbolism in this picture.
I did this in 1998 and gave it to a very special friend. After many years, for various reasons, it was returned to me in 2022 in pristine condition. Back then, I had a dream of holding her hand which I then drew while we were on the beach in Dahab, Egypt and which I later incorporated into this final piece. When I created this, it felt like there was an outside force, an energy, that held my hand in the same way my hand is holding hers in the drawing. Enjoy the explanation of the story below and all the symbolism in this picture.
Time: the past is connected to the present and affects the future...
That I can leverage positive powerful moments from the past to give me strength in the present. Indeed I have many life changing, powerful and spiritual moments at that time, 1998, that led me to create this piece as a gift for my friend.
The monument resting on my hand (large hand on the very left) is about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The monument, which is at the entrance to a Kibbutz I was at in Israel, has a man falling looking down, a strong man is holding him and looking forward, and man behind/beside him with a dagger is looking up. Sometimes I imagine I am all 3 people at different stages in time. Sometimes I am falling (the past), I grab myself and try to be strong (the present), and I move forward, looking ahead and upwards (the future). There's more meaning there with the woman and baby but will leave it at that.
You will notice that the hand (that gives a base to the statue) is MY hand with a thumb ring (which is a picture of the exact thumb ring I had at the time - ask me about that some time and I have more stories for you!) and I am holding on to the hand of the girl I loved which is actually a shadow from the rocks on top of the menorah that duplicates a monument in Rome (Arch of Titus) created by the light from the lamp. Those rocks are in delicate balance by the small ball on top, almost like an eye, from the past "looking" into the future. If that is removed, the rocks collapse and the shadow (from the lamp on the right from a scene in the mystical roads in the old city of Tsfat) would no longer be there. My hand would have nothing to hold on to and the "eye" of the future (on the left side) would not have this memory of the past to give it strength. The future could not exist without the past. Likewise if the lamp was off, there would also be no shadow.
I used to venture out into the forest to meditate thinking of her, by balancing rocks (7 here). The rocks symbolized our relationship; I was careful not to balance too many stones/boulders as that increased the chance of it collapsing. At the same time, I needed to balance some to add strength to the strucutre. I always felt that there was another "hand" that helped me.
No matter what though, God (the apple) hovers in the centre and is not affected. He is timeless. An energy that exists in all of us. The shin (ש - a Hebrew letter that stands the name Shaddai, a name for God) comes out of the tasty, sweet bite of the apple - God. We can taste His sweetness all the time.
A nice extra meaning is that the girl's first name to whom I did this for, started with shin. My name starts with yud. The stem of the apple looks like the letter yud. Yud-shin is yesh which means "there is". Not there was, or will be, but there is - the present moment or another way to look at it is that the past/present/future all exists at one time. Or that God, which can interpreted as an energy outside of our 5 dimensions, is not effected by time hence exists alone in the drawing. Quantum physics/string theory alludes to this. So this describes in some way, the very present. One could look at is like the the gravitatioal pull of the apple allowed events to circle around. And I fell for her like gravity, I was pulled in and when with her, time stopped.
When a man marries a woman it is customary (in Judaism) that the ring goes on her index finger. This person was the first person I thought I could see possibly asking for her hand in marriage. But I didn't have the guts to do that. I felt too young and not ready for that anyway. But didn't want to tell her. So the ring, goes through on her index finger. A very subtle way of giving her my thoughts without telling her - that I am not ready to put a ring on her index finger, but that I can think about it...I can't even find the right way to describe this in words. The art says it perfectly for me though. So the circle of the ring on my thumb created by the hole in her finger right where the ring would be if I asked her to marry me (so like a partial, part of a ring), and sort of looking like an eye looking back.
In fact, she later told me on her flight back to the US, she didn't pack the art piece but stared at it on the whole flight and eventually figured out my message. We were both so busy. Her and I met on a 3-month on a program in that mystical town of Tsfat that I mentioned in northern Israel. That is where we fell in love. After the program we both stayed in the country experiencing different programs. Her and I could not get much time away, we actually met, spent a day or evening together over 8 months, only 13 times before I gave her this drawing. That's why there are 13 figures in the drawing. Some of the figures are not connected to the rest of the drawing.. again like God... timeless. It was a statement on the magical moments we had in the few times we met.
I gave her the piece while we were in front of the Western Wall, the Kotel, which is shown in the top of the drawing. When I drew this section, I imaged the figures of those praying at the wall also symbolized a moment when I cried in deep prayer to be with her.
That I can leverage positive powerful moments from the past to give me strength in the present. Indeed I have many life changing, powerful and spiritual moments at that time, 1998, that led me to create this piece as a gift for my friend.
The monument resting on my hand (large hand on the very left) is about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The monument, which is at the entrance to a Kibbutz I was at in Israel, has a man falling looking down, a strong man is holding him and looking forward, and man behind/beside him with a dagger is looking up. Sometimes I imagine I am all 3 people at different stages in time. Sometimes I am falling (the past), I grab myself and try to be strong (the present), and I move forward, looking ahead and upwards (the future). There's more meaning there with the woman and baby but will leave it at that.
You will notice that the hand (that gives a base to the statue) is MY hand with a thumb ring (which is a picture of the exact thumb ring I had at the time - ask me about that some time and I have more stories for you!) and I am holding on to the hand of the girl I loved which is actually a shadow from the rocks on top of the menorah that duplicates a monument in Rome (Arch of Titus) created by the light from the lamp. Those rocks are in delicate balance by the small ball on top, almost like an eye, from the past "looking" into the future. If that is removed, the rocks collapse and the shadow (from the lamp on the right from a scene in the mystical roads in the old city of Tsfat) would no longer be there. My hand would have nothing to hold on to and the "eye" of the future (on the left side) would not have this memory of the past to give it strength. The future could not exist without the past. Likewise if the lamp was off, there would also be no shadow.
I used to venture out into the forest to meditate thinking of her, by balancing rocks (7 here). The rocks symbolized our relationship; I was careful not to balance too many stones/boulders as that increased the chance of it collapsing. At the same time, I needed to balance some to add strength to the strucutre. I always felt that there was another "hand" that helped me.
No matter what though, God (the apple) hovers in the centre and is not affected. He is timeless. An energy that exists in all of us. The shin (ש - a Hebrew letter that stands the name Shaddai, a name for God) comes out of the tasty, sweet bite of the apple - God. We can taste His sweetness all the time.
A nice extra meaning is that the girl's first name to whom I did this for, started with shin. My name starts with yud. The stem of the apple looks like the letter yud. Yud-shin is yesh which means "there is". Not there was, or will be, but there is - the present moment or another way to look at it is that the past/present/future all exists at one time. Or that God, which can interpreted as an energy outside of our 5 dimensions, is not effected by time hence exists alone in the drawing. Quantum physics/string theory alludes to this. So this describes in some way, the very present. One could look at is like the the gravitatioal pull of the apple allowed events to circle around. And I fell for her like gravity, I was pulled in and when with her, time stopped.
When a man marries a woman it is customary (in Judaism) that the ring goes on her index finger. This person was the first person I thought I could see possibly asking for her hand in marriage. But I didn't have the guts to do that. I felt too young and not ready for that anyway. But didn't want to tell her. So the ring, goes through on her index finger. A very subtle way of giving her my thoughts without telling her - that I am not ready to put a ring on her index finger, but that I can think about it...I can't even find the right way to describe this in words. The art says it perfectly for me though. So the circle of the ring on my thumb created by the hole in her finger right where the ring would be if I asked her to marry me (so like a partial, part of a ring), and sort of looking like an eye looking back.
In fact, she later told me on her flight back to the US, she didn't pack the art piece but stared at it on the whole flight and eventually figured out my message. We were both so busy. Her and I met on a 3-month on a program in that mystical town of Tsfat that I mentioned in northern Israel. That is where we fell in love. After the program we both stayed in the country experiencing different programs. Her and I could not get much time away, we actually met, spent a day or evening together over 8 months, only 13 times before I gave her this drawing. That's why there are 13 figures in the drawing. Some of the figures are not connected to the rest of the drawing.. again like God... timeless. It was a statement on the magical moments we had in the few times we met.
I gave her the piece while we were in front of the Western Wall, the Kotel, which is shown in the top of the drawing. When I drew this section, I imaged the figures of those praying at the wall also symbolized a moment when I cried in deep prayer to be with her.
Further meaning that came about years later...
ln February, 2004 I was diagnoses with a fatal brain cancer (GBM). I brought many levels of energy to help me heal, overcome and deal with reality of this horrible diagnosis. I recall imagining, somewhat in a dream state, that the 3 men on the left holding each other perfectly symbolized different stages of my being; I collapsed in a grand mal seizure, held myself up, and then looked into the future. My cancer experience of being strong and not just looking forward but knowing and seeing me in the future, that I would survive..and thrive. Later, the woman holding a baby beside me and leaning away from me seems to symbolize my marriage with her holding my beautiful daughter.
ln February, 2004 I was diagnoses with a fatal brain cancer (GBM). I brought many levels of energy to help me heal, overcome and deal with reality of this horrible diagnosis. I recall imagining, somewhat in a dream state, that the 3 men on the left holding each other perfectly symbolized different stages of my being; I collapsed in a grand mal seizure, held myself up, and then looked into the future. My cancer experience of being strong and not just looking forward but knowing and seeing me in the future, that I would survive..and thrive. Later, the woman holding a baby beside me and leaning away from me seems to symbolize my marriage with her holding my beautiful daughter.
Publication of this piece:
Brilliance! 2021 (see pages 144-145)
Jewish Western Bulletin 1999 (page 3) or https://newspapers.lib.sfu.ca/islandora/object/jwb:6972
This picture cannot be reproduced or copied without permission of the artist. For high quality print, please contact the artist.
© Butterfield 2017
http://yaronbutterfield.com
Brilliance! 2021 (see pages 144-145)
Jewish Western Bulletin 1999 (page 3) or https://newspapers.lib.sfu.ca/islandora/object/jwb:6972
This picture cannot be reproduced or copied without permission of the artist. For high quality print, please contact the artist.
© Butterfield 2017
http://yaronbutterfield.com