My mother's mantel clock has lived in the studio for six years now. Nice piece, brass and marble, keeps perfect time. And I cannot work with it audible. The ticking pulls me out of the glaze layer and into counting. I finally took the pendulum off and stuffed a rag in the back just so I could have the thing on the shelf without losing my head. It's beautiful and it's useless to me as a timekeeper in here, which feels like some kind of metaphor I don't need to chase.

The hours in this room are not measured the same way. You know when the light changes, when your knees complain, when the paint stops behaving. That's the clock that matters. The other one just makes you anxious.