Artists Are "Different"?

[Linda Fried]

..Cynthia. It's late here, too! Sorry!

Linda

[Patt Legg]

am 9/10, but I comment on the other part of this thread. I am different because I am an artist, not an artist becuse I am different

Thank goodness, Lon, someone posted a score on a close basis. Mine was 10/9 right brained. Now I know why I am so constantly confused. It didn't help when I read that I was on my way to becoming whole brained. (My hubby wasn't joking all this time!) But then of course he is 5/14 left brained. It also explains why we never see eye to eye on so many subjects. (His extreme and my confusion between realist and "dreamer", as he likes to express me.) Ha!

Opposites attract?

[Valerie Gudorf]

I am a very frustrated right-brainer, and for years, I have suspected that I have ADD. I easily grow restless and bored and have a very difficult time staying "on-task". I can't seem to keep organized for the life of me and live in a perpetual state of mental scatter. In other words, I'm a mess. I get the feeling that I am a bit of an extreme case. Do any of you have a diagnosis of ADD? If so, how did you obtain it? Do you take medication to control it?

Lon, I believe that virtually anyone who can be taught how to write can be taught how to draw also. Betty Edwards proved this long ago. The ability to draw, however, is not the thing that makes one a true artist. Vision, sensitivity, creativity are all prerequisite. Otherwise, one is merely a copyist.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Right brain, ADD -- that is interesting. I am as ADD as they come, which may be obvious from my postings. I always told my mother if they had medication and she didn't comatose me with Ether (sp?) at my birth I would have been a neurosurgeon or Gary!

I choose to take the medication. It keeps me focused and I can paint forever. Thus, as Sharon pointed out once, my family does not eat or wear clothes.

This entire chemical imbalance and brain hemisphere discussion led me to wonder if most far right brain people also excel in other

[Catherine Muhly]

Cynthia - it is indeed possible to be right-brain dominant and be in computers. If you use the "messy desk" test, you can spot them easily. My desk was always messy, and so was my mentor's. He said he had a "feminine" style of programming, which was to write all the code and then use iterations to hone out the bugs.

There was another guy whose desk was so messy, it almost got a health department violation. This guy was a real "cowboy" at the keyboard. For him, rules were to be broken, and he found ways of getting around security. His flowcharts, when he bothered to write them, looked more like street maps of Paris than a single line of boxes. By way of craving stiumulation, he also was a volunteer fireman in his community, plus he moonlighted by driving trucks of hazardous materials. The company should have fired him, but he was too brilliant.

Think of the hackers - brilliant, non-conformist, creative (and how!). I think the leaps of genius, the "thinking outside of the box" are right-brained traits, which can be possessed by people in any field.

Valerie - I had the diagnosis of ADD when I was a kid, and when given the option of prescribing Ritalin, my parents opted against it. The only handicap I felt I had was that I found it necessary to write out everything that I was reading in my studies. I took copious notes in class. It's as if my fingertips were the repository of my memory. It was going to get impractical to keep this up when my reading load got very large. Math and science became attractive, because the readings were short, illustrated with pictures, and followed by exercises.

I was recently diagnosed with adult ADD; ADD doesn't actually get 'outgrown'. I was prescribed Adderall, a stimulant like Ritalin. I tried it, and didn't care for it. It made me squirrely. So that left me with learning to better structure and organize my time and space.

If you search google with keywords like "procrastination" "adult add" there are a number of informative and helpful sites out there. There are also tests to determine if you have ADD by the score on the web. But 'right-brain-dominant' describes many of the same things that 'ADD' does according to what I've seen and read and experienced so far. And the recommendations given in the book, Organizing for the Creative Person are nearly identical to the suggestions that have been written in books and websites addressing non-medicinal remedies for ADD.

[Holly Snyder]

This is an interesting thread, as I think everyone who has posted here has been right-brain dominant. I am 13/6 left-brain dominant, and I'm hoping that being a right-brainer isn't a prerequisite for being a successful artist! Any other lefties out there? My husband is 12/7 left-brain, which is interesting because we see eye-to-eye on almost everything.

Regards,

[Mike McCarty]

I am 12-7 left brain. A few years ago I was a full time residential contractor. This is about 90% left brain stuff. I had to wake up on the left side and stay on the left side most of the day. I would escape over to the right side when I could but I could never stay there for an extended period of time. I think that I operated pretty well in that mode judged by the fact that I was never sued, the true mark of success in any endeavor.

I have now been doing art full time for more than two years. This has caused a complete shut down of my left side. All the organizational stuff that is required to run my house, my business, has completely shut down.

This is interesting to me. It suggests that (for me, if not everyone) both sides were always present and ready when needed. When my left side was exercised regularly it operated competently, although probably to the detriment of the right side. Now that my right side is exercised it has completely taken over very much to the detriment of the left.

I can say that the right side is a more fun place to be. I'm pretty sure that if I ever found someone that would take up these left side duties, I too would claim permanent left side disability and deny having ever operated in that cerebral western hemisphere.

***

'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

[Margaret Port]

That observation is very interesting, Mike.

I too find that I can actually operate either left or right dominant, depending on the prevailing situation, but I find it very difficult to swap over. The older I get, the harder it becomes.

If I am working, (using maths) I cannot paint. Literally cannot, the brain has no creative energy at all. If I start painting, I hardly function in the real world and really need a minder.

Once I was on a train and I was trying to come up with a logo and name for a client and the ticket inspector came along and stood beside me and I could just see his feet. I got really annoyed because I had no idea who he was or why anyone would want to disturb me. My daughter finally seized my purse and produced the required tickets. She wanted to know where I was!

When I am in creative mode, I cannot comprehend money or time or newspapers. Can't grocery shop, can't add up. It's very debilitating.

My flautist daughter, on the other hand, in her final year at high school, achieved the highest marks in the state for art, music and science. Of course, I think she is very well balanced. She measures up exactly in the middle, 9/10. I suppose she has well balanced genes.

[Holly Snyder]

I'm pretty sure that if I ever found someone that would take up these left side duties, I too would claim permanent left side disability and deny having ever operated in that cerebral western hemisphere.

So what you're saying is that I should come on over to where the grass is greener... or is it really the dark side of the force?

[Mike McCarty]

Yes Holly, drop that hyphenation and head West! The West is the best, get here, and we'll do the rest.


Note: This is another one of Mr. McCarty's ultra obscure references. It is no doubt the result of his debilitating right brain saturation. We humor him, and continue (a little longer) to look for any redeeming value.