Illustration – Douglas Bonneville
Although advice on fostering creativity is not hard find, it often falls short to dig deep into the reservoir where creativity germinates.
In her book, The Artist Within, Betty Edwards explores a force that propels creativity. She stresses the need to recognize and develop this force, or mode, to enhance creativity and solve every day problems.
She writes :
For most people, the question “How can I become more creative?” is a deeply significant one. I believe the answer to the question lies within a paradox: that one becomes more creative not by trying to be more creative, but rather by further developing that part of the mind, the visual, perceptual mode of the brain, which is so deeply involved in creative thinking. I truly believe that learning to see in the artist’s mode of seeing is one of the roads that lead to the goal of greater creativity. There are doubtless other avenues, but the biographical notes of creators are clear: visual perceptual processes are central to creativity.
Turn away from words
In her search to find the relation between perception, drawing and its effects on creativity, Edwards scoured the writings of some of the most influential creators. What she found was the common opinion that using words to communicate their experience of creating was extremely difficult, and that words hinder the creative process itself.
Successful creators suggest a turning away from the usual mode of thinking so that a different mode can be accessed. This other mode is visual perceptual and allows you “to look at the world from a different point of view” (see a recent post on “seeing” by Frederich Franck)
A “whole” new way to think
Is there another way to translate the experience of creativity? Another language, she wondered, that could be beneficial to, yet different than analytic thought?
She found that in recent history, (the mid 1960’s) discoveries were being made about the dual nature of brain function. And that the visual perception mode was beginning to rank up there with the critical, analytical mode. Both were integral to the thinking, and therefore creative process as a whole.
Just as words are in the service of analytic expression, Betty found that a beneficial language to access and express the visual mode was drawing. Often revealing what words can not, drawing can sort, tame, and make sense of the many chaotic impressions we daily absorb.
And so began her work; finding ways to peek into this window of seeing through the language of drawing. The idea is to develop visual perception, balance it with analytical thought, and through wholeness, stimulate and empower the creative process.
The exercises in her book are primarily to instruct you on how to see things differently rather than draw. Although better drawings are the result of learning to see, the final objective is to enhance creativity and teach creative problem solving through various stages of whole thinking.
Drawing brings balance and beauty
Drawing is a powerful tool to bring deeper awareness to the outside world – an intuitive knowledge as well as capacity for insight. She argues that learning to see varying perspectives brings health, beauty and more awareness to the details of every day life.
She writes,
Once you have embarked on the path of drawing, it becomes the most natural thing to shift frequently to the artist’s mode of seeing. Your responses to people, places, things and events then change in some subtle way, because you see things differently. Since whatever you draw reveals its often unexpected complexity and beauty, you become more curious and more observant, and images remain in the memory with a vividness and clarity not obtained through ordinary ways of seeing…”
Winston Churchill excitedly talks about this mode of seeing as he discovered painting:
I think this heightened sense of observation of nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint…The whole world is open with all its treasures. The simplest objects have their beauty…Obviously, then, one cannot be bored. …Good gracious! What there is to admire and how little time there is to see it in!” – Winston Churchill
It’s worthwhile to develop your visual mode of perception. Everyone is an artist, but often that aspect of the personality is buried within the unconscious. With a little training and attention we can look afresh at things around us we might otherwise for granted ,and by doing so gain insight about ourselves. Paradoxically, as we discover the artist within, we will better understand and appreciate the world outside us.
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