Hello Creative QB’s,

2 minute read

Google states time is “a measure used to sequence and compare the duration of events, and to quantify rates of change in material reality or in the conscious experience.”

Wowsa..when I read this I was immediately projected back through time to a cold grey classroom staring helplessly at my physics textbook scowling at my horrid teacher, wishing I was in the safe folds of the art room sipping tea humming away to REM and the ironically titled album ‘Out of time’.

How the conscious experience of time gave me permission to be creative.

After reading google’s definition again, I was struck by one phrase. “Conscious experience!”

It prompted me to ask the question of myself about my authentic awareness of time, space and my own ‘conscious experience’ – my ability to be consciously and physically present in any particular moment.

I have been forced to experience time over the last 4 weeks in a way I have never before.  I recently had surgery for an ongoing issue and was ordered by my surgeon to rest for 6 weeks, a near impossible task for me, because all of this ‘time’ has given me ‘time’ to think! About the where’s, the why’s and all the what’s, because it seems lately I have not been ‘consciously present’ at all.  I suppose it is human nature to overthink when given nothing but time. It is only as I come to the end of my own ‘ashram on the hill’ experience that I am now becoming aware of my ‘conscious experience’ and what I choose to do with it.

Creatively my conscious experience comes in ebbs and flows and sometimes presents loud, clear and assertively. Other times it hangs back just a fraction in the shadows, hovering but still consciously present. It may be the admiration of nature’s beauty whilst looking through a lens or it may be some fantastical idea that ‘I must do’ that gets stored in the subconscious until time and space permits. It is always there. The trick is making it consciously accountable and a reality.

But the gift of ‘time’ during my recovery has given me the opportunity to reconnect with my love of illustration. To watch the paper transform into something real and alive is a joy and a challenge. Each layer of paint or ink is capturing that particular moment and every thought becomes embedded into the paper. In a strange way I feel a piece of me becomes imprinted onto the image.

Wallaby work in progress. ©Belinda O’Bryan

I suppose like portraiture, the thoughts, conversations and connection between the subject and the artist reflect that particular moment in time. Their conscious experience frozen on the canvas and sometimes the visual impact of this connection is nonetheless striking.

So the luxury of this recovery has given me the permission to place energy into my work and plan what the future holds. However, my ‘conscious experience’ allows so much more than that. It’s the intensity of the collaboration of all of my senses in one moment that permit the magic to happen. That is when I know I am living. That is when I know I am present.

So continue I shall with lots of ideas, plans and dreams but with a an awareness of time like never before. “The timing is right, my time is now”.

Because really….time waits for no-one.

Belle ♥