It’s about time (exhibitions)

Installing an exhibition in record time - above is the dragon that arrived “in an instant” this week.

“Time is an illusion that moves relative to the observer “– Albert Einstein

I’ve been thinking of time this week to consciously move out of a mindset of time scarcity.

With three major events on as well as an application to write, a dragon to make and zoom calls to fit in around, I knew that I was going to need to make time work for me.

I didn’t want to compromise my non- negotiable things that bring me joy and set me right for the day, which is going to the beach for a swim, having a relaxed breakfast and taking time off for morning tea.

However there were two days this week that I did sacrifice those for the sake of stretching time in the morning. I knew that this was only a temporary measure to accommodate the extra tasks that needed to be fit into the day.

In my Creators Circle coaching program, the first concept we look at is Creating Time. As creators, we need to work with time rather than feel a victim to it. I’m very aware of this since I work for myself and could technically take days off and go to the movies in the middle of the day. But that’s pretty much a rarity.

I work more hours than I ever did, with the difference being that I love to go to work. Two steps through the kitchen door and I have saved 2 blocks of 40 minutes of travel commute. So there’s nearly an extra hour and a half to add to my working time. 

I work consistently in small blocks of time in the morning when I feel most creative which allows time for after lunch naps.  Synchronising with my body clock means I know where I need to create extra time if I have particular jobs to do that require creative thinking. Anything rote like sewing or scheduling or chores can get done in the afternoon when I have  less capacity for sharp and focused thought.

According to theoretical physicist Dr Lee Smolin, “many of us, when we think about what we really value or really aspire to, it's to be outside of time.” Dr Smolin is the author of  Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe. In an interview on NPR,  Dr Smolin said time is real, not relative and reiterated:

 “What I mean when I say that time is real is that everything which is real and everything which is true is real or true in a moment, which is one of a succession of moments. That's what we experience”.

 This corresponds with the view of the one French philosopher I read during my university art course who made sense to me, Gustav Bachelard. I felt that somehow I could grasp his concepts, especially about time. In his book L'Intuition de l'instant (1932), (the Intuition of the Instant), Bachelard wrote about the paradox of time, that it is a series of moments, or instants.

“Time is a reality confined to the instant and suspended between two voids.”

He said these are “the problems of duration and the instant, of habit and life. He also said that:

“Intellectual courage consists in actively and vitally preserving this instant of nascent knowledge, of making it the unceasing fountain of our intuition...”

While many people might scoff at intuition, artists know that intuition is the thing that connects hands to heart, that nascent knowledge when something “feels right”. Learning to trust your intuition is about knowing that time will work for you, that you always have time because you work on an intuitive plane of reality.

 My theory then, is that time is real, relative to you trusting your intuition. It’s not a scientific fact but that is what I am going to hold onto until this is proved wrong to me. If this works for me, then I am going to go with it.

Maxwell’s Equations, photographic print 2012. A black hole time portal with a mobile phone. Maxwell was a 19th century physicist whose scientiific equations to prove eltromagnetic radition built the basis upon which our digital technology is based.