[warm-up, creative parenting]

Did you play this game as a child? It bears repeating and is a great thing to do with your own kids. It’s non-competitive, free, interactive and instructive, for adults as well as children. Plus, if you bring a creative slant to it, it can be an experience that teaches about the close relationship between smell, memory and creativity.

THE GAME:

Place a series of smells under the noses of blindfolded people and ask them to name them.

Best played in the kitchen.

That’s it.

However, it’s not as easy as it would seem to be. Sometimes the smell is as familiar as your own name but the word for it will not come. This is probably because in order to do this we have to utilize two separate parts of the brain. The part that identifies smells as familiar and known—and the part that puts a word to that familiar and known smell, ordinarily with the assistance of sight.

It would be a great game to play at a Halloween party since this holiday is already so much about masks and the senses. Make it part of your “Haunted House” and have the kids identify a few ‘bad’ smells along with the good or neutral.

If you’re just playing this at home, talk to your kids about the brain and memory. Sit down with them and do a quick free-writing exercise just to see what the non-verbal sense of smell has aroused in your c-minds. If your children are too young to write, let them dictate their stories.

You can also use some of your game smells as the basis for art work. After you’ve played the Smell Game, tell your kids they can make art with the ingredients. Explain that this art work may not be as lasting as if you were using paint. It might be a good time to teach them words like “transient,” “ephemeral,” and “fleeting” and to talk about art and artists who make art that is intentionally so.

Smell Art Ideas:

Sprinkle jello on a paper and let them use their fingers to make art (this is a great sensory-rich way to help them learn to write their letters and numbers, but save that for another more structured time ) Enhance the smell factor by letting them dip their fingers in lemon juice first!

Dip paper in strong tea, coffee, fruit juice.

Use berries to make dyes, paint with them!

Finger paint with (a little) peanut butter. (Maybe even jelly, too?)

Put glue on the paper and use aromatic spices as you would glitter.

Take one item—how about a lemon?—and do a whole picture out using all parts of the lemon.

And, this is a whole other article, but don’t forget: edible art! Pancakes with food colouring, popcorn ball people, rice cake worlds.

LINKS

Here’s a lovely website
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110299/html/index.php made by three young people about the brain and the mind, including pages on creativity (take the How Creative are you? quiz), the senses and memory.

The Ephemeral Arts - check this one out. it’s all about ephemeral arts on the Indian sub-continent; here’s another link to the same site, one that gives examples of these kinds of art. Use them with your kids!

Stayed tuned for my own Ephemeral Arts article. Coming soon!

Have fun and never forget that anything you can do with kids and creativity, you should be doing for yourself anyway. Tapping into our childhood well, keeps creativity flowing strong!

[-journaling, c-mindfulness-]

Next time you are writing in your journal, switch the pen to your other hand and write.

I know. I know. You can’t write with your other hand. Never mind. Go on and do it anyway.

Writing with our non-dominant hand can have interesting results because it confuses our brain. Part of that protest you just put up about not wanting to write with the wrong hand was your brain’s way of keeping things predictable. That’s okay. That’s its job. Let’s face it: we function because our brains are in charge. Our brains do a phenomenal job of keeping the world understandable and keeping our bodies and behaviours in sync with that world. But the parts of our brain that are so effective at everyday life, may not be the parts that give us the best results when it comes to pure creativity.

Since creativity may be useless, nonsensical, playful, wordless, metaphorical, musical, messy, and so on, the practical brain that serves us so well, needs a little nudge to get out of the way while we create. Try writing with your ‘wrong’ hand to make this happen.

Why does this work? Our non-dominant hand is linked to the non-dominant hemisphere of our brain. Some studies indicate that one hemisphere is active when using the dominant hand but both hemispheres are activated when the non-dominant hand is used. Either way, many people find that they ‘think differently’ or that surprising things get written down when using the non-dominant hand.

I should caution you that therapists having used this technique have found that some people can access primitive and raw emotions, so I am not suggesting here that this be used as therapy. If you are interested in that, please be sure that you’re working with a trained professional first.

The use of this technique here is suggested as a warm-up to further creative activity. It’s suggested as a way to circumvent the linear part of our brain and get into the wordless, metaphorical, visual part.

There are other ways that one can use this technique. If you have an everyday situation that needs problem-solving, try writing about it with your non-dominant hand. See if you can come up with a more ‘creative’ solution than you’ve considered previously.

Another possibility is to use it when you want to remember or learn something new. I have a friend who wants to improve her vocabulary. While she’s having her coffee each morning she copies words from the dictionary using her ‘wrong’ hand. She swears that her memory for the words is more reliable now. She even reports beating her husband in SCRABBLE for the first time after doing this for a few weeks. Now that’s worth something! Remember…both sides of the brain being are being activated. She just might have something here.

Try it. Politely and gently—using bad handwriting—ask your everyday brain to step aside for awhile while creativity and new ways of thinking are explored.

See why R-mindfulness has changed to C-mindfulness here at The PCQ. Click on C-mindfulness in our topics to read about other ways of accessing your C-mind.

[-crackles!, c-mindfulness-]

by Nancy Waldman

I am in the process of writing an article on using the non-dominant hand in journaling as a way to reach the R-mind. In doing so, I decided that my icon and ’short-hand’ talk of R-mindfulness, based on Betty Edwards work regarding the use of brain hemisphere dominance to teach art, is at the least out-of-date and at the most, offensive to the small percentage of left-sided creative brains out there. The good news is that those people don’t know they’re offended because most of us haven’t had our brains examined.

The traditionally-dubbed *creative side* of the brain is usually but not always the right side. The dominant hemisphere of a person’s brain is not necessarily the left side although research supports an estimate of left brain dominance in at least 70% of people. And in looking at this today, I’m reminded that ‘dominance’ isn’t always about language but frequently about motor skills. Handedness is one of the ways this has been studied and, researchers have found that not all left-handed people (approximately 15% of the population) are right brain dominant even in motor skills. This is an area of research that has no definitive answers but there are some studies that have suggested that the more firmly dominant the left-handedness is, the more likely that person is to be right brain dominant at least in terms of language.

Confused? Me too. Every time I wade into the marshy bog of *Creative Sides of the Brain* I feel that I’ll soon be up to my elbows in a thick peaty mush of ideas that do not have scientific studies to back them up. So why bother? Because it’s fascinating! Because we all have brains and because conventional wisdom is that we use a fraction of the power of the brain in our everyday life. Because the kinds of exercises that I’ve been calling “R-mindfulness” do work on some level for most people to trick the dominant, organizing, practical side of our brains into letting go for a while, so that we can put the non-verbal, metaphorical, visual sides at the forefront while we’re creating.

But because not everyone accesses the right side of the brain when they do my R-mindfulness exercises, my referring to the R-mind is—what shall I call it?—hemispherism? leftism?

Wikipedia in talking about the historical and cultural bigotry surrounding left-handedness (or just ‘left’) points out:

Even the word “ambidexterity” reflects the bias. Its intended meaning is, “skillful on both sides.” However, since it keeps the Latin root “dexter,” which means “right,” it ends up conveying the idea of being “right-handed at both sides.” This bias is also apparent in the lesser-known antonym “ambisinistrous,” which means “clumsy on both sides” and derives from the Latin root “sinister.”

So from now on, the articles about R-mindfulness will have to reflect my newly raised-consciousness about this. However, the phenomenon discussed in these articles is the same whatever side of the brain is less dominant. The point is to access the lesser used portions in tricky ways so as to circumvent the normal functions. It’s complicated so I have to call it something simple!

How about…full-mindfulness? F-mind? ooh. Not so good. The innocent letter “F” has an undeserved and much more negative bias even than left-handers. There’s mind-fully or, quite appropriate in a metaphorical sense, fully-mined. Well…that probably gets us off-track. Fully-mindful is too fully-mouthful. Whole-mind is used in other ways to teach reading and such. Non-dom, short for non-dominant? That’s a bit negative. Alternate-mind. Alternate-hemisphere? Alt-mind? That sounds like a keystroke shortcut. Oh, there you go: Alt-control! Hmmm. Alt-hemi? Demi-hemi? Semi-demi-hemi?

Okay. This is a total illustration of how my creativity works (or more specifically: does not work).

For now I will settle on C-mind—short for Creative Mind—until, unless, I can think of a better iconic term.

Any suggestions?

June 16: This article was withdrawn and re-written after its first posting, evidently to illustrate more fully my personal brain’s challenges.

For a brief description of what I’m talking about, here’s the first article I wrote about the R-mind.
Here’s another one called Changing States.
Click on C-mind tag to get a full-listing or go to our Topics list and click on C-mindfulness

[-exercise, un-blocker-]

by Nancy Waldman

Do you feel creative but still have difficulty creating?
Is something holding you back but you’re not quite sure what or why?
Are you feeling blocked?
Do you feel that your output is a trickle instead of a flood?

Here is a exercise designed to explore these kinds of problems in a new way.

In Marks Have Meaning, I made the point that small, quick, abstract marks can and do communicate emotions and concepts. This same concept can be used as an effective tool for problem solving.

The idea for and way of using marks as problem solving devices came to me from Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Artist Within, which I highly recommend.

Get several pieces of paper and a pencil with an eraser.

Sit down for a moment and think about your life. Choose an issue that is a challenge or an on-going problem, something that you don’t really have a handle on. It does not have to be a creative problem but if one of those questions at the top of this article is bothering you, it might be a good place to start.

Once you’ve decided on a problem, don’t think about it. Begin to draw.

Ms. Edwards suggest that you first draw a boundary on your paper. She calls this a format for the problem. It does not have to be a rectangle or square. Make it any size or shape that seems right.

Then begin to draw the problem. This drawing should take focus as a photograph developing before your eyes. Be in the mind of the issue you’ve chosen but don’t control this drawing with words. Let it come. The main thing to remember is that it should not include any representational or symbolic icons or figures. No hearts, or words, or lightning bolts or pictures of any kind. Just lines and abstract imagery.

Draw for as long as it takes. Remember, you are letting another part of your brain work for you. You are letting the r-mind communicate in the way it can. Enjoy the feeling of being wordless.

If one drawing doesn’t seem enough, do another. Don’t forget to ‘format’ it first, even if you choose to let the edges of the page be the boundary line.

Once the drawing or drawings are done, take a moment to assess how you feel. Are you refreshed? Frustrated? Feeling lighter? Or do you feel silly? Whatever it is, jot the word(s) on the back of the drawing.

Then think about what the drawing is telling you about your problem. Now is the time to try and put it into words. Say out loud what you see, how it makes you feel, what you observe about what you’ve drawn. It’s a similar process to recounting a dream. Often in retelling a dream, there is a process of identifying, of focussing. We might say, “There was a cat in the corner and that cat was—spooky…no, not really spooky, that’s too strong a word. More eerie. That cat gave me an eerie feeling that was like…well, surprisingly it reminds me of Great-grannie Gertrude!” And so on.

Turn your drawing over and on the back write the words that your r-mind has communicated to you. Ms. Edwards suggests that you “memorize” the drawing and the words. The idea is to hold both in your mind at once. Don’t let the words take over because the drawing may have more information in it than you can see right away. Before leaving this exercise, close your eyes and try to picture the drawing you did. Is it memorized? Then think about the words and hold them both in your mind at one time. It isn’t that hard, since you created both. They came from you and therefore are not foreign. The process has simply put them into your awareness in a new way.

Here’s a drawing I did years ago. I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t sustain creative efforts to completion.

In the same way that my dream would have significance to me, but would not to you, this drawing will mean nothing to you. Even if I point out the barriers and the difference between one side of the drawing and the other, it’s not your mind, your problem or your experience and therefore, not significant. However, what you should know is that I gained multiple insights from this and similar drawings. Doing these drawings over the years helped me deal with situations in my life with a broader understanding and awareness of them. In the same way, if you go through the process with openness, your drawings will have deeper significance because they came out of you.

Give it a try and see what happens in your life. For those of you who try it, share your experience with our readers by making a comment below.

[-r-mindfulness, exercise-]

by Nancy Waldman

Before beginning your creative work for the day, try this as a warm-up. It is an excellent way to access your R-mind and to lift your awareness from everyday mode into a heightened realm.

This warm-up is a drawing exercise but it’s not just for visual artists. It will help no matter what kind of creative endeavor follows.

Pick an object to draw. It can be anything, simple or complicated but, especially if you are new to this, choose a small object that can be brought to your drawing table so that you can focus on it easily.

Try to set aside ten to twenty minutes of uninterrupted time. Set a timer if you have one. Because you know there’s a set limit, this will help you to ‘forget’ the passage of time as you work. This will enhance the experience.

Using paper and pencil (it doesn’t have to be a pencil, but I enjoy the resistance that graphite on paper gives) you are going to draw the object. But this is no ordinary drawing. A contour drawing is one where your eyes never leave the object you are drawing and your pencil never leaves the paper once you’ve begun.

The end result will not look like the object you’ve chosen. This is okay because the purpose of this contour drawing is not to have a representation of that object; it is instead to focus on the edges, the lines, the boundaries, the negative space, the contours of the object in a new way. Here is a contour drawing I did of my hand.

The first thing you probably notice is that it doesn’t look like a hand. Good. It’s not supposed to. Now, notice the very specific quality of the line. In contour drawings, you are focused only on *seeing* and moving the pencil as you move the eye. Usually, there is another step between putting what we see on paper. Normally, you would look at the object, then look at the paper, decide on the placement of the line and begin to draw. By that time, though, the specific quality of what you’ve seen has already become somewhat diluted.

In a contour drawing, because the usual connection between what is being seen and what is going down on the paper is removed, the lines show the specificity. They are usually quite beautiful and sensitive, but even that is not the purpose of doing the drawing.

The purpose is to get your brain away from its usual mind-set. After you do your drawing, ask yourself how it felt. Did you notice that you were a little irritated at first? Perhaps you felt frustrated or silly. All of these less than positive responses are quite normal ones, especially if you’ve never done a contour drawing before.

That’s your everyday mind rebelling against an exercise that is completely different. The goal here is to persist with the drawing long enough to pass through these objections and into another mode, a different way of thinking.

Once you’ve done the drawing, then start your day of novel writing or oil painting or composing or whatever your creative work happens to be. You’ll find yourself in a less mundane, more relaxed, focussed and flexibly creative state of mind.

[-photo essay-]

compiled and written by Nancy S.M. Waldman

[-art, tutorial-]

Here’s a drawing tutorial for anyone who’s ever actually uttered the words, “I can’t draw a straight line” as well as for others who know they can, but who are out of practice.

HOW TO DRAW

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

Becoming aware of Negative Space will help you to be able to beautifully reproduce anything you can see.

What exactly IS Negative Space? The easiest way to think of it is the space around whatever solid object you’re trying to draw. Here’s an example. In the photo on the right we’ve pointed out some of the negative spaces.

See the spaces between the back rungs (the yellow arrows)? That is negative space. The spaces in-between the rungs at the bottom of the chair (green arrows) is also negative space. Around the edges of the photograph - outlined in purple - you can see that the total space around the chair is also negative space. Seeing it in a photograph is easier than if the chair were sitting in your room. Then, you would have to imagine the edges of your paper as the outer edge of the negative space around the chair. See below for a hint about how to make this easier.

Notice that each one of those negative spaces has a specific shape. This is what you would need to tune into if you were going to draw this particular chair in this particular position. Does this feel too complicated?

Here’s another example. The second photo has some of the negative spaces outlined. Anything you can see that isn’t candle or candlestick is negative space.

Now look what happens when we put the candlestick in a more natural setting. What you notice immediately is that the background is more complicated and one object overlaps another. That is precisely why paying attention to the space around objects is so important.In drawing what we see, we must overcome the part of our mind - the L-mode - that tells us “this is too hard!” Entering into a state of R-mindfulness will help to stop thinking about how we aren’t up to the task and will, instead, allow our eyes to take in what is actually in front of us and translate those lines, edges, shadows and colours to our paper.

When we SEE the space around what we’re drawing, the 3-dimensional picture in front of us flattens out.
Take a look at the candlestick still life again.
Some of the negative spaces are outlined so that you can see them more easily.
Look at the curved space showing through the back of the chair (outlined in purple). If you began there and drew that space, then allowed your eye to travel to the next space - say the space that is made by the edges of the window, chair rungs and table just below the curved space (outlined in yellow) and so on to the next and the next space without worrying too much about how it was turning out, you would be doing several important things at once.

First, you would be paying attention - truly seeing - what’s in front of you rather than thinking, “There’s too much! What do I draw first? How do I show that light edge? I can’t do this!” — all of which would be worse than useless to what you’re trying to do. Getting away from L-mode wordiness is an important step.

Second, you would be transcending your L-mode and getting into your R-mode, the creatively friendly part of your mind.
The reason this happens is that the L-mode is confused by paying attention to what isn’t there. When the L-mode gets frustrated that’s a clue to you that your R-mode can kick in. Once you become familiar with that frustrated feeling, you’ll begin to welcome it - it means you’re on the right track!

Third, you would be seeing what’s in front of you in a new way… more as puzzle pieces than as objects with 3-dimensions. In order to draw what you see, it’s necessary to flatten out the picture.

In this way, it is actually easier to draw a complicated picture with many overlapping details - such as the second candlestick still life. The candlestick with the white background has such a large negative space in comparison to the object that it’s easier to lose your way than it is with the smaller negative spaces of the second candlestick. Here’s something very complicated for you to imagine drawing:

Can you begin to see the negative spaces? Remember from our candlestick example that the seemingly more complicated scene became easy when we looked for the spaces around the objects and thought of them as puzzle pieces. Let’s move in closer to the plant so you can see that the same principle applies.

Look at the beautiful negative spaces! When drawing something this complicated, an artist does make decisions about what details can be left out.
You can do a magnificent drawing of a complex subject like this without drawing every single leaf or space. However, what never works is to allow your L-mode brain to instruct you while you’re drawing as to what a Swedish Ivy looks like. If you do, the end result will not look like the plant in front of you. It will look generic at best.

In order to draw faces, people, plants, hands, landscapes, interiors, trees - in fact anything you can see - using negative space will make you believe in your own artistic talent! Of course there are other skills in learning how to draw what you see but learning to use Negative Space is an essential tool to have under your belt. Have fun!
Picturing Frames

Make yourself a picture frame in order to envision the edge of your drawing and see the negative space more easily. Out of stiff piece of 8″ X 10″ cardboard, cut a rectangle out of the center, leaving a 1″ to 2″ frame. There’s no magic to the size of the opening.
In fact, try two, one with a 5″ X 6″ opening and another with a 4″ X 5″ opening. Hold them up to the scene that you want to draw in order to picture those outer edges of your negative space. This is also a great tool for getting the best composition before you begin.

© 2005 - 2007 nancy sm waldman; all rights reserved

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces

[-essay, parenting-]

What do yoga, Carlos Castañeda and being a loving, effective parent have to do with knowing who and where and what you are? Read this great essay to find out.

Playing the edge, finding one’s spot and being one’s true self

by guest essayist, Joe McCarthy

I recently attended a four-class parenting seminar on Love and Logic, wonderfully facilitated by Cindy Horst. The three “rules” of Love and Logic are:

1. Take care of yourself by setting limits in a loving way
2. Give choices whenever it’s reasonable.
3. Let empathy and consequences do the teaching.

Throughout the classes, parents were encouraged to stretch to allow children to experience more consequences directly, enabling them to fail early and often, rather than being protected or rescued from those consequences. There is much to be gained by moving out of our comfort zone, but stopping short of real pain. Cindy notes that the Love and Logic principles can be used not only by parents interacting with their children, but in school and the workplace as well.

I see these principles as applying equally well to my interactions with my self.

This notion of stretching to the edge of our comfort zone reminded me of the concept of “playing the edge” that Erich Schiffman describes in his wonderful book “Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness”. Reviewing the highlighted passages in my copy of the book revealed close alignment with some of the concepts taught by Don Miguel Ruiz in “The Four Agreements” and by Don Juan (via Carlos Castañeda) in “The Teachings of Don Juan”. I’ll include some relevant passages below.

On “playing the edge” (from Erich Schiffman’s book):

A large part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to move into a stretch … This place in the stretch is called your “edge.” The body’s edge in yoga is the place just before pain, but not the pain itself … Sensing where your edges are and learning to hold the body there with awareness, moving with its often subtle shifts, can be called “playing the edge.”

One of the things you learn in yoga is to enjoy working with intensity. Intensity is simply more “energy” at any given moment, more feeling … Yoga can teach you to enjoy and learn from a broader range of experience. It will encourage you to seek out and process more intensity … Skill in yoga involves creating the perfect amount of intensity — not too much, not too little.

The real key to depth in postures is going slowly, making sure you have thoroughly opened your early edges … Proceed slowly, edge by edge and gate by gate … Respect your tight edges. Work with them sensitively. Lure them to greater openness.

Never be in a place you don’t want to be. If you do not like it, change it. Adjust. Find the degree of stretch you can totally immerse yourself in … Never fight yourself.

This last part reminds me of Don Juan’s notion of finding one’s spot (via Carlos Castañeda’s book):

Finally he told me that there was a way, and proceeded to create a problem. He pointed out that I was very tired sitting on the floor, and that the proper thing to do was to find a “spot” (sitto) on the floor where I could sit without fatigue. I had been sitting with my knees up against my chest and my arms locked around my calves. When he said I was tired, I realized that my back ached and that I was quite exhausted.

I waited for him to explain what he meant by a “spot,” but he made no overt attempt to elucidate the point. I thought that perhaps he meant that I should change positions, so I got up and sat closer to him. He protested my movement and clearly emphasized that a spot meant a place where a man could feel naturally happy and strong. He patted the place where he sat and said it was his own spot, adding that he had posed a riddle I had to solve by myself without any further deliberation.

Finally, re-reading the opening chapter of Schiffmann’s book reminded of the concept of mitote in Ruiz’ book:

Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time and no one understands each other. Everything you believe about yourself and the world, all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote. We cannot see who we truly are; we risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Schiffman addresses this issue of who we are - and who we are not - and suggests that yoga can provide a way to discover and experience our true selves:

Yoga is a way of moving into stillness in order to experience the truth of who you are … From very early on, a fundamental conflict was introduced into our psyches revolving around this basic and most important issue: Who am I, really? And because we were not encouraged to find out for ourselves, we believed what other people told us. The result is that we feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and confused about who we are. We feel judged … [Yoga teaches you to] turn your attention inward and focus on yourself. Focus on what it feels like to be you. Experience you.

One of the things I like about Love and Logic is that it encourages children to be who they really are. Rather than trying so hard to control children, the program points to a path through which children can more naturally unfold to be their true selves, with gentle guidance and support from their parents. This approach resonates with me, and I will try to apply it as best I can. And, regardless of how this affects my children, I plan to get up extra early tomorrow to have more time to find my spot, play my edge … and experience being me.

about the author:
Joe McCarthy’s mission is to help people relate to one another. He has played the edges of academia and industry, and is currently moving out of his comfort zone and opening up to the intensity of a new entrepreneurial path aligned with this mission. More about Joe’s entrepreneurial aspirations can be found at interrelativity.com; other dimensions of his journey can be found on his blog: gumption.typepad.com. This article is a slightly revised version of this one originally published on his blog.

illustration from the yellow woman series by nancy sm waldman © 2005 - 2007 all rights reserved

Published with the permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-r-mindfullness-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

Ready?
Alter your brainwaves.
Begin.
Go on.
I’ll wait….

For many, the first and possibly only impulse upon getting instructions like that would be to start drinking or taking drugs, legal or otherwise.

But, to alter your way of perceiving the world without injesting something? Yes! It is more than just possible; it’s attainable.

But, why? Why would I want you to alter anything about the way your brain functions everyday?

To enhance your creativity, of course.

As we’ve talked about before in our R-mindfulness columns, parts of the brain work for us creatively and parts don’t. Our everyday brains are understandably and adaptively programmed for what we do on a daily basis. Even if we do creative things everyday, our minds are set on a certain kind of creative output. We have to shake things up, alter what parts of our brains we’re using, in order to be fully creative. This is because the creative process requires of us the ability to think flexibly, go off on tangents, free associate, be instinctive, switch courses, take it one, two and more steps farther than anticipated.

Our l-mind shudders at the thought.

There are many ways to slip into that more creative frame of reference that we like to call r-mindfulness - see our Mind-Altering Exercises feature for some [slightly tongue-in-cheek] suggestions - but the tricks have to do with using the intelligence of our senses. In order to draw a glass of water sitting on the table in front of us, we must see that water glass differently. Our eyes can do that if our mind lets them. Paradoxically, it takes seeing the glass as a flattened pattern of edges and negative space in order to reproduce it faithfully as a three dimensional-looking drawing. Once we allow our eyes to see it, we can draw it.

Sometimes we literally have to turn things upside-down to get our l-mind to move aside and let the r-mind come to the forefront. The classic example of this - used by Betty Edwards in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - is to take a complex line drawing done by someone else, turn it upside-down and copy it. Persons who swear they have no artist ability can do a masterful job of reproducing the drawing. Why? Because the l-mind doesn’t find an upside-down drawing logical. It loses its bearings and - in the presence of specific instructions about how to proceed - allows the spatially perceptive part of the brain to work its magic.

Altering your brain doesn’t mean changing it in some fundamental way. Instead, it means accessing parts of your brain that may be underutilized. That’s why experimentation and free association and doing exercises that turn things upside down are helpful. Once we know what that shift into r-mindfulness feels like, it becomes easier to get back there when we’re ready.

And remember, it isn’t just our eyes that have intelligence. Use all your senses to access your r-mind. Writers and actors as well as artists can use smells to evoke a sense of place and an immediate emotional reaction in a way that promotes r-mindfulness. Don’t forget touch, taste and hearing as well. Experiment with your senses in a playfully purposeful way to enhance your abliity to be creative.

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations
© 2006 -2007 - all rights reserved

[-metAphorism, r-mindfulness-]

metAphorism is a word I coined to mean a simple, everyday thing, concept or event that points us in the direction of a deeper lesson. metaphor - figure of speech giving an implicit comparison: this is that. aphorism - concise statement of a truth or opinion.

by Nancy Waldman

The metAphorism
Desktop Short-cuts

The lesson
Knowing short-cuts to access the most creative part of our minds will heighten creativity

Easily accessing your creative mind is like clicking a shortcut icon on your computer desktop. It not only saves time, but also limits frustrations while maximizing successes.

Did you know that part of your mind is good at and enjoys the creative flow while part of your mind resists it? Take a look at the classic art book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards for an in-depth explanation. Ms. Edwards’ work originally referred to the right hemisphere of the brain as being the more creative side with the left side carrying out the everyday linear functions. This is a convenient label for what are highly complex and individual processes. We know that the brain hemispheres work together but the “r-mode” is an expression coined by Betty Edwards to represent a very real state of consciousness wherein creativity is more likely to happen.

If you have trouble getting started in your creative pursuits or are overly critical of your creative output when you begin, it may be that you’re trying to use your “everyday” mind instead of your creative mind.

If you are constantly bothered by distracting thoughts like, “I need to do the laundry.” “This is no good.” “What makes me think I can write?” “My stomach hurts.” “What time is it?” it’s because you haven’t clicked on your r-mode shortcuts. Finding the right frame of mind is like clicking the proper icon on your desktop: it takes you there as fast as possible.

Movement such as walking, dancing and traveling in vehicles seems to be conducive to r-mode thinking. So does water. That’s why we often get our most inspired ideas while driving or showering. Unfortunately we can’t do our work while soaking wet or stuck in traffic! We need to become adept at short-cutting. Our linear minds must recede like a Window’s file behind our r-mode minds when we are at our desks or our easels so that we can get the work done with fewer distractions.

Remember the “Desktop Shortcut” when you want a short-cut to your creative energy.

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: Inspiration
© 05-07 Nancy S.M. Waldman