“In Origins,” I wrote, days after the artwork was done, “a plastic pomegranate is a playful indication of Persephone’s meal that set the course of the seasons; circular layers echo the earth and the face of a clock.”
And that’s not inaccurate, but I wasn’t thinking anything about Persephone when creating the image. Time was on my mind, because it was part of a series for the ArcheTime exhibition in 2009. As not unusual, my first thoughts ran to CD versus LP and I began with scanning a particularly rainbow-esque bit of plastic (which, however, didn’t become part of the finished image).
Next in line was a sculpture from 2001. The slides weren’t so good, so I re-photographed it and was happy with the results. There were many digressions along the way, just as there have been while creating this post. The first six images are from the original process for Origins of Time; the next five from the evening of October 29, 2011.
P.S. Seeing the image in Infinite Instances: Studies and Images of Time was one of the best surprises ever. Curated and designed by Olga Ast, and edited by Buzz Poole and Eli Stockwell, “Origins” is the first full-page spread in this marvelous book.
The images in this post are original artwork by Catherine Rutgers © 2011.
As of February 2020, Infinite Instances is available online.
CatRutgers4Art 
Pretty Amazing! Love the pomegranate under the disc!
Good morning, Anonymous! and many thanks for your compliment. I believe you’re referring to pic two, which is the original sculpture – part of a series created for the installation “The Death and Rebirth of Vinyl.” See “Juiced Orange” here at CatRutgers4art, March 2, 2011.
There were four on full-size LPs and a couple of 45-rpm size. Although they look good on the wall, my dream installation would be slowly spinning turntables with a spotlight for each one!
Looking back at “Origins of Time” in progress, it amazes me how psychedelic-busy some of the steps were. What finally brought it all together in its relatively elegant-cool state was a variation on the desktop background “Radial Invert” (see CatRutgers dot com, Desktops, “Classics” image #10).