This Is How It Goes: By Change and By Chance

An 800-day project

On July 1, 2023, I began a process project to model the passage of time and the way natural changes and fickle chance together cumulatively affect a life.

I set out to mimic a “life” as it transforms, and to visually document how all the additions and all the subtractions balance out. For 400 days, I rolled a die on a stand-in life—a 36 X 36 inch work on paper—and cut out a piece where the die landed. The size of each hand-cut circle is roughly proportional to the number on the cast die, 1 through 6, with all the 6s being slightly smaller than a 25¢ coin.

Along with making the daily random subtractions, every few weeks I added to the surface as the impulse took me. Change of palette or pattern, experimentation with various tools and media, the application of new marks and text.

By day 400 (August 3, 2024), this life showed no signs of collapse despite the small but steady daily removals. And so the 400-day project has become the 800-day project. The next reckoning will be September 8, 2025. Updates at: instagram.com/georgina.montgomery.art.

This Is How It Goes: By Change and by Chance
Day 400, August 3, 2024. L: The 400 remains of each day removed from the “life” as dictated by the cast of a die. R: The body of the ever-changing life.