What is an Artifact?

An excellent question.

Excellent questions are inherently suspect.

They tend to assume there is an authoritative answer.

There likely isn't.

For the purposes of Nikki's World an Artifact is not simply an object.

Nor is it something that suddenly springs into existence because a human being declares, "Behold! I have made a thing!" while gesticulating like a corny magician.

That seems self indulgent and unnecessarily dramatic.

An Artifact is a snapshot, a moment in time, a temporary expression of an infinite continuum.

An Artifact simply assists a Nomad to be agile in the unknown terrain of subjective reality.

That can mean an infinite number of things from physical comfort to emotional support.

The fibers that become an emotional support hat once grew in a field.

The buckle may have begun its hatward evolution inside an exploding star.

The carbon wandered through forests, oceans, dinosaurs, and perhaps the digestive tract of something with very poor hygiene, it has had a long history, possibly infinite.

Nothing truly begins when a hat becomes a hat.

A collection of existing material merely agreed to be a hat for a point, a blip along a continuum of beginningless time.

Maybe hats have other aspirations prior to their hatdom moment?

Or, after?

In very much the same way most NikkiArcane Artifacts are not "created" in the traditional sense.

The jacket was sewn by someone in Bangladesh to feed their family.

The cloth was woven by someone else in Vietnam to feed their family.

The pattern may have been imagined by someone else in Neuilly-sur-Seine who was hoping to buy a Porsche.

Many hands have passed this object along on its eventual path to you.

Sometimes nothing has been altered at all.

Sometimes something might be “overly embellished”.

Something much less impressive than any of this happens to make an object an Artifact.

Someone notices.

That's it.

The object sat quietly among hundreds of perfectly respectable objects until someone walked by and thought,

"Well now...

...that's interesting."

That small act of paying attention changed everything.

The little AcidCat maker's mark does not claim authorship.

It is not saying,

"Observe my artistic genius."

That would be embarrassing and again, self indulgent (as Nikki gesticulates like a corny magician).

It is simply saying:

I saw this.

It interested me.

I thought you might enjoy it too.

What are your thoughts?

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Rather like pointing at an unusually shaped cloud. Look ma!

Or a mushroom.

Or a man wearing a conical field shelter in the produce aisle of Whole Foods on suburban Long Island.

One notices such things.

People occasionally ask what makes something "Nikki."

It isn't the logo.

You could put an AcidCat decal on a blender.

That would just be a blender with swag.

Chaos and blenders rarely end well but you get the picture… maybe?

What makes something Nikki is attention.

Curiosity.

Perception.

Intention.

A willingness to stop long enough for something to become slightly less ordinary.

An Artifact does not contain meaning.

It does not manufacture meaning.

It certainly does not arrive with a user’s manual explaining its significance.

Meaning is sneakier than that.

Meaning rarely arrives announcing,

"Good afternoon. I am Meaning."

Meaning usually slips in quietly unnoticed through the side door...

...wearing an interesting hat.

One person walks past an old jacket.

Another stops.

One sees faded denim.

Another sees twenty summers, three concerts, two repairs, one mysterious stain, and the possibility of another adventure.

Nobody is “wrong”.

Meaning happens in the encounter.

In that moment.

To wear an Artifact is not to possess it.

It is to accompany it for a moment or a series of moments.

If it accompanies you well…

Together you attend concerts.

Walk unfamiliar streets.

Stand under impossible skies.

Shout at ferocious badgers.

Wait out storms.

Rock on front porches.

Travel open roads.

Acquire stains and patches and fraying cuffs and… what even is that?

Together you collect stories.

Occasionally you might receive compliments or be noticed by complete strangers.

“Hey! Nice hat!”

This is generally considered a successful blessing.

Nothing truly ever belongs to any of us.

We simply encounter one another.

Briefly.

Moments.

Fortunately, moments appear to make up entire lifetimes.

One day your paths will diverge.

Excellent.

That was inherent in the original agreement.

Nothing lasts for very long in the same form, remember the aspirational hat?

Perhaps someone else will wear the same hat.

Perhaps they will repair another jacket.

Perhaps they will lend the parasol to a friend who “forgets” to return it.

Perhaps the hat will someday cease being a hat altogether.

It has not gone, disappeared, evaporated.

It has continued becoming.

The greatest hope within Nikki's World is not that an Artifact is ever possessed.

That it becomes collectible.

Even that it survives forever.

The hope is simply this:

That somewhere...

Someone pauses.

Looks.

Smiles.

And quietly says,

"Nice"

Then maybe they wear it or any other Artifact they develop a relationship with.

Maybe they accompany it into the wilds of the Dollar Tree in Cushing Oklahoma.

Add a few stories of their own, Cushing is like that.

Maybe attend a few shows, a barbeque, an open field, a late night campfire, an attempt at getting the attention of hard of hearing ferocious badgers.

Maybe one day they pass that Artifact along to another wandering Nomad.

Not because they are finished with it.

Because the conversation isn't over, the Artifact has more to say.

They get it.

There are no accidents.

Our paths crossed here.

I’m grateful they did.

Thank you for noticing.

Thank you for asking questions and looking for some answers.

I hope I have helped more than I’ve led you astray.

AcidCat has reviewed this document and says mew.

May all beings benefit.

Be kind and have compassion as your motivation through this and all realities.

~Nikki