KAUST in 60 Seconds: Where the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

There is a particular kind of attention that most of us have lost without noticing we lost it.

Not focus. Not productivity. It’s something more fundamental. The ability to really look at the thing in front of you and find it interesting.

We know from research that seeking out moments of awe in the everyday reduces stress, lowers cortisol, and improves wellbeing. We know that slowing down and paying attention to the world around us changes how we feel in it. What nobody tells you is that a pencil is one of the most effective tools for doing exactly that.

KAUST in 60 Seconds: Where the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary is built on that idea. Each page pairs a photograph of something ordinary with a 60-second illustration, the same object transformed through imagination, from a simple act of noticing. Noticing a shape, or negative space, a shadow, or a color. Suddenly, a row of conical shade canopies transforms into three ballerinas in white tutus. A palm tree becomes a flamingo, its trunk the legs, its fronds the body, a neck and beak the only addition needed. The KAUST Beacon, with its latticed honeycomb cone rising from the desert, becomes a melting strawberry ice cream. The waterway at dusk becomes a unicorn.

The photograph shows you what is there. The illustration shows you what was always hiding inside it.

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The effect of that accumulates. The same wall you walked past yesterday becomes a composition worth noticing. The same light you ignored becomes something that lands differently at 4pm than it did at noon. The world around you does not change. The way you move through it does.

I developed this practice living in a community where the streets repeat, the houses are identical, and even the furniture in each home is the same. For a working artist, that sameness is either a challenge or the best creative training you will ever get. For anyone, however, it is an invitation. When the external world stops offering novelty, you learn to find it through the quality of your attention.

A school in the USA adopted the book into their classroom curriculum. Other responses that stayed with me came from people who had not drawn since childhood, who picked it up out of curiosity and found that sixty seconds a day and others who simply enjoyed the treasure hunt of ordinary objects which could contain hidden alternate shapes! This book changed something in how they moved through their day.

That is what this book is really about. Not drawing. Rather, seeing and noticing. Just this simple act alone, brings the present moment to a screeching halt and holds you firmly in place. And in those little moments, the furrowed brow softens, heart rate calms, and the past and future dissolve. Imagine sprinkling your day with moments like those.

Available now on Amazon in hardcover, with bonus content. A standalone workbook is also in development, designed for anyone who wants to take the practice further without needing to know anything about drawing. Join the mailing list to be the first to know when it launches.

This book is an independent artistic project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

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