Art In 3D

Summer Program Alumnus Receives 2012 Honickman Book Prize

Idyllwild Arts — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:22:23 +0000

Tomás Q. Morín, a past fellow at the 2006 Summer Poetry in Idyllwild Festival, was recently awarded the 2012 Honickman Book Prize for his manuscript A Larger Country.

Tomas Q. Morin, Winner of the 2012 Honickman Book Prize

During the Summer Poetry in Idyllwild Festival Tomás worked with Pulitzer Prize winner and poet Natasha Trethewey and poet Cyrus Cassells, winner of the Lannan Literary Award and a Pushcart Prize. Mr. Morín states, “I had a wonderful time at Idyllwild’s poetry program. It was great spending time with so many talented students in the idyllic mountains of southern California. The faculty was stellar and encouraging of all the students. That kind of early encouragement and validation is priceless.”

He received his MFA from Texas State University, and MA from Johns Hopkins University. He is the recipient of scholarships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference and the New York State Summer Writers Institute, and was a fellow at the Idyllwild Summer Arts Program. He is a Senior Lecturer at Texas State University.

His poems have appeared in New England Review, Narrative, Boulevard, Slate,Threepenny Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere.

Senior Theatre Majors Attend Chicago Unified Auditions

Idyllwild Arts — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:29:26 +0000

Our Theatre department seniors and faculty just returned from our annual trek to Chicago, Illinois to complete the Unified Auditions for theatre training programs. This year 14 seniors completed 81 auditions from February 5th through the 9th and these students were able to access one of the biggest collections of theatre programs to date. Idyllwild Arts has developed the tradition of attending the Chicago auditions since it brings the most programs together in one small geographical area. This year the students were able to audition for 48 different programs, all within walking distance of the Palmer House hotel downtown. The schools represented range from 2 year certificate training programs to comprehensive university programs offering BA or BFA training, mostly within the US and England. Our students tend to want many different things in their next phase of education so this trip has something for everyone.

Senior Theatre Majors in Chicago for Unified Auditons

While in Chicago we also try to experience a little of the city life and expose students to new and different dining options. For the alums reading this, we still carry out the tradition of “family dinners” in Greek Town and Russian Tea Time. This year we also hosted an alumni brunch on Sunday morning. It was nice to see the alumni mingling and sharing their experiences with the current students. This year, Natalie Bayard Boone ’04, Brooke Hebert ’11, Angie Caravaglia ’11, Juwan Lockett ’11 and Shane Prentice Walz and Jamie Cahill ’10 were able to attend. Larkin Bogin ’05 had just gotten to town while touring with American Idiot however due to rehearsal calls he wasn’t able to meet up with the group. Hopefully we’ll be able to see him when the tour comes to LA this spring.

As hectic and stressful as this week can be, it is wonderful to see the students using their training to pursue their future goals. Each one has such different visions for their future after leaving Idyllwild Arts yet for these few days, they are working together as a team to help each other achieve.

Idyllwild Arts Senior Makes Feature Film Debut

Idyllwild Arts — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:29:13 +0000

Dylan Arnold in production for Fat Kid Rules the World

Dylan Arnold, a senior Idyllwild Arts Theatre major, will walk the red carpet this March when his upcoming film Fat Kid Rules the World premiers at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. This is Dylan’s first feature film and professional onscreen appearance. Directed by Matthew Lillard, Dylan plays the supporting role of “Dayle” in the film alongside actors Billy Campbell, Jacob Wysocki, Matt O’Leary and Lilli Simmons.

Dylan is represented by an agent in Seattle, near his hometown of Bainbridge Island, and goes on auditions whenever he’s home on break. This past summer, he auditioned for the role – never thinking that he would get the part. Dylan said, “A week went by and I hadn’t heard from them. Finally, my Mom called and said that I would have to find someone to take over my summer vacation job as the producer called and wanted me for the role. I dropped the phone in surprise.”

The production began in July, with Dylan on set for three of the five weeks of filming. According, to Dylan, working with first time director Matthew Lillard was a real privilege and tremendous learning experience for him. Matthew has had a distinguished career as an actor, appearing in films such as Scooby-doo, She’s All That and – most recently – The Descendants. Dylan described Matthew as an “actor’s director… he tells you what is going on in the scene, and then asks for input from the actors.”

Dylan also states, “I give my training at Idyllwild Arts full credit for having made it possible to win this first film role. At Idyllwild Arts, I learned how to analyze and develop a character more fully, be more natural on stage and stay in the moment.”

While at Idyllwild Arts, Dylan acted in several student films. In 2011, he appeared in Laura Holliday’s “Rockstars: The Pete Weaver Experience” with Conor O’Farrell. In his first semester, in Spring 2010, he was cast in two films: the award winning “Shortcomings” by Andrew Reisfeld and “On the Bright Side” by Laura Holliday. Dylan says that the “experience of working in front of a camera is completely different than being onstage. I learned the need for subtlety and how to contain myself when the camera is up close. Being in student films at Idyllwild made all the difference in knowing how to behave in front of a camera.”

Next, Dylan is off to the Chicago Unified Auditions and would like to attend either Chapman University, where he could study both Theatre and Film, or Roosevelt University in Chicago to study Theatre. Fat Kid Rules the World is also scheduled to appear at the Seattle International Film Festival.

The Creative Value of Stupidity

Idyllwild Arts — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:27:53 +0000

by Brian D. Cohen
Reblogged from The Huffington Post

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. – Albert Einstein

If there’s an original thought out there, I sure could use it now… — Bob Dylan

Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel concluded that wehumans just might be infinitely stupid. That might explain what’s special, even most hopeful about us.

According to theory, a driving force behind evolutionary change is genetic mutation, random changes in genetic codes that alter biological structures and processes, some, but very few, to the selective benefit of the species. Most genetic aberrations are dead-ends, killing their host, but wait long enough and sometimes one will pay off in a big way.

Evolutionary processes take place very slowly; culture evolves much more rapidly. Culture –innovative ideas that are adopted and stick around — plays something of the same role played by evolutionary biology; creating defenses, contrivances, and systems to keep traditional threats (saber-toothed tigers, etc.) at bay and passing on these mechanisms for survival.

But according to Dr. Pagel, we’ve reached the point where culture selects for less innovation. It’s more efficient to borrow someone else’s thinking, and near impossible to think of great things on your own. Thinking is hard work, and not many of us are good at it.

Where can the ordinary unoriginal person find the creative capacity to bring new ideas to our culture? Stupidity. It’s our version of mutation, in our denatured, devolved state; generating and sifting among alternative bad options and landing on one that just might work out. Mutation is to Biology as Stupidity is to Culture. Random and inefficient, generally unintentional, sometimes fatal, but something might come of it, if only because it’s not the same old same old.

Stupidity is infinite. There are limitless possibilities for getting something wrong, and very few for getting it right. From the sheer multiplicity of mistakes, bad ideas and wrong turns, something of unexpected value might result, something heretofore unknown and unthought of. Stupidity is extraordinarily inefficient and wasteful, but it isn’t about getting things done. It’s about exploring the unknown, plumbing a limitless array of possibilities, diving in the pool of untested opportunity. Stupidity belongs to something much larger than itself.

Culture is predominantly and of necessity imitative and repetitive. Look at the cut & paste mashup borrowing, sampling, replicating, recycling, and reoffering of much contemporary art — no real risk, despite appearances. It’s there for the taking and rehashing. True stupidity is something original, something special. Something you haven’t seen before. Something that can’t be taught or learned. Something truly new; we know it when we see it.

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely. All art is useless,” Oscar Wilde reminds us. Art is useless, and practical-minded people claim that expending great resources and effort in the service of something useless is stupidity. Take the Eiffel Tower. The great arbiters of French Culture of the time called for protesting “with all our might, with all our outrage, in the name of slighted French taste, in the name of threatened French art and history, against the erection, in the heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.“

What folly this thing is, they must have thought. This ridiculous, sublime achievement, this jewel in Paris’ crown.

Pure genius.

Past to Present – Alumni Visual Art Show & Opening Reception

Idyllwild Arts — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:26:51 +0000

Alumni Visual Art Show
In addition to Shepard Fairey, featured artists include Monica Lundy, who is making waves in Northern California with her inmate portraits on linen. Nate Lowman, currently shredding the gallery scene in NYC, will lend one of his bullet holes. Artists Paul Waddell, Arianna Sikorski, Jiwon Yoon, Youree Jin, Laurel Sparks, Kaelen Green and Richelle Gribble will exhibit, while artist books by Alison Yates, Sung Yun Yang and Erin Latimer invite your hand.

In the field of photography, Jovielle Gers will show a few images from her time working at Naropa, including one of the Dalai Lama. Greg Jensen is an Art Director who documented the fall and aftermath at Ground Zero.

Hawkeye Glenn is using his sculptor skills in metal and design to make functional fixtures. Jonathan Taube and Tada Kono are playing with politics and prickly pears, Krista Peters is creating portraits in brass, and Daniel Gray will make a site-specific installation. CJ Dunn has lettered the gallery with his design.

Past to Present: the Idyllwild Arts Alumni Show opens February 10, 2012, running through March 3, in Parks Exhibition Center on the Idyllwild Arts Campus. For more information see the Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Idyllwild-Arts-Parks-Exhibition-Center or call the gallery (951) 659-2171 x2251.

Alumnus Shepard Fairey ‘88 Street Artist, Illustrator & Graphic Designer Gives Guest Artist Lecture

Idyllwild Arts — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:14:07 +0000

(January 30, 2012) Idyllwild Arts is honored to host artist Shepard Fairey, class of 1988; creator of works such as the iconic Obama HOPE poster and OBEY street art, and a featured subject of the acclaimed 2010 documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Mr. Fairey has distinguished himself as graphic designer, illustrator and street artist, as well as a savvy guerilla marketer. This is Shepard’s first time to speak to students of the school he attended in its earliest years.

Shepard will give an artist lecture on Friday, February 10 at 3:30 pm in the Idyllwild Arts Foundation Theatre on the campus of Idyllwild Arts. The event is free and open to the public, with limited seating. His artwork will also be included in the Visual Art Alumni Show that opens the same evening in Parks Exhibition Center.

When Shepard graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 1988, he was part of only the second graduating class. Carolyn Lowman, wife of Bill Lowman—the founding head of the academy—describes Shepard as “a breath of fresh air.” He brought his skateboard with him to Idyllwild, inspiring the Lowman’s to build a half-pipe in their front yard for him and their young son, Nate. Upon graduation Shepard enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he completed his education.

Bringing alumni back to Idyllwild Arts to share their memories, experiences and perspectives with students is an active part of the academy’s education experience. Idyllwild Arts strives to build a student experience that not only includes a strong arts and academic education, but also gives them tools to excel upon graduation. Sidney Morgan, a senior Visual Art major said “I am excited to see an alumni that is not only making a decent living with his art, but making a life with his art as well. “

Earlier this year, Idyllwild Arts hosted alumnus Liang Wang, principal oboe of the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Wang worked closely with the music students and performed an oboe concerto with the orchestra. More alumni from all areas of the arts will return throughout the Spring Semester to address seniors in their Life Skills class. This program, managed by the Arts Enterprise Laboratory (AEL), recruits alumni to speak about their post-Idyllwild Arts education and careers.

Leave Those Kids Alone

Idyllwild Arts — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:56:13 +0000

Reposted from The Huffington Post
By Brian D. Cohen

When my daughter was entering fifth grade, we went around visiting all the private and public school options within a 45-minute drive of our home in rural Vermont. Most distinctive, and in many ways the most appealing of the schools, was a Waldorf middle school. I liked what I saw until the art teacher expounded an elaborate unified field theory of child artistic and psychological development that forbade students from using the color black, and I said, c’mon, we’re leaving. I didn’t really care if my daughter used black in her artwork or not, that was her choice, but I thought that keeping black away in the name of an abstruse grown-up theory was too much for a fifth-grader. She went to public school instead, where they didn’t have much art at all, so maybe I was being stubborn and willful to my daughter’s detriment.

When we get too directive or overbearing about play and the arts, we can take more away from kids than we give them. Sometimes we have to leave our kids alone to play, and not obsess, belabor, hover or cajole like tiger mothers of the imagination.

What is the role of play in education? A recent study of 300 children from working-class families found: “The ones that emerged as most creative …used their play as work,” says Stanford professor Shirley Brice Heath. “They were very difficult to disengage from play. To a person, they disliked, avoided, subverted education if it was not related to what they saw as their interests.” ‘Science Looks at How to Inspire Creativity’ by Sarah Sparks in Education Week, December 14, 2011 (Vol. 31, #14, p. 1, 16).

To oversimplify this a bit, kids do best when they want to learn; when what they learn is recognizably in their interests; when learning is fun; and especially when it’s challenging and engages them. In ‘Studio Thinking: How Visual Arts Teaching Can Promote Disciplined Habits of Mind,’ Ellen Winner observes that “focus and develop inner-directedness… (are) taught first and foremost by presenting students with challenging projects that engage them and require sustained work.”

Play as work? The arts involve play, not because the arts are easy, or even fun most of the time (and don’t say frivolous). Play in the arts is the exploration of patterns and relationships; the rehearsal of possibilities; the in-the-moment tactility, movement, sound, light, and awakening of the senses; the puzzle, thrill, and risk of learning a new form of expression, a new language; the excitement of observing and making sense of the world, the interaction of our stories, our feelings, our shared discoveries.

All good. But the outcome is indeterminate; success is uncertain; setbacks are inevitable; making progress is hard work; and the pathway is unfamiliar and not marked out in advance. Play is work.

I heard earlier this year about a woman named Lenore Skenazy who let her nine-year-old take the subway across New York City by himself, earning her the epithet “America’s worst mom.” I sort of admired her. We can’t control every aspect of our kids’ lives. Kids have to learn some things on their own; they learn that the answers they discover themselves have special value, because they don’t come easily.

When my daughter was a little older than nine (OK, a lot older), just for fun she and her best friend asked me to drive them blindfolded (them, not me) to an unknown location a half-hour from our house (this was Vermont, not NYC), and to drop them off so they could find their way back home, on their own (at that point they took off their blindfolds). I had driven them over to New Hampshire to disorient them. They made it back to the house in a little over an hour. I’m not sure how they did it. No doubt it took some ingenuity.

A lesson I learned early on as an art teacher is that the artwork your students make is not your own creation, not in the way the work you yourself create as an artist is. A teacher is more like the bad mom putting her son on the subway or like me driving the girls to someplace unknown; providing the challenge but not the ride home.

From the Archives of Krone Museum – Famed Recorder Artist Pays Visit

Idyllwild Arts — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:41:59 +0000

From: Sydney Cosselman, Krone Museum Director

An interesting excerpt from a story printed in the Town Crier on August 31, 1962 – another piece of ISOMATA (Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts) history:

FAMED RECORDER ARTIST PAYS VISIT

The millions of recorders heard throughout the world had their beginning on Platform 7 of Waterloo Station, London, in November 1918.

It happened when Arnold Dolmetsch handed a bag, containing his priceless 1750 recorder, to his son Carl. Father and son were home before they realized the bag had been left on the platform.
This week in Idyllwild, the world’s leading recorder artist and general manager of Arnold Dolmetsch Ltd., Carl Dolmetsch, told the story of an instrument that has undergone a renaissance.
The recorder, or English flute, dates back some 900 years to a period when it was believed to have been used to teach caged birds how to sing. Later it became the favorite of royalty.
Henry VIII was a recorder player and collector, leaving 76 at his death. Shakespeare was familiar with the instrument and refers to it in both Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet.
Handel, Bach and Purcell were among the great composers who wrote for the recorder.

During the 19th century the recorder suffered a temporary eclipse, so that few instruments were available. With the loss of his 1750 instrument, Carl’s father was faced with the necessity of creating one. He was then famed for his construction of harpsichords and clavichords. “Searching for the lost recorder was doomed to failure, but the loss was a blessing in disguise. Father was faced with a challenge – and he always took up any challenge,” declared his son. Although skilled in the construction of other musical instruments, the senior Dolmetsch faced a real task in perfecting a recorder. The instrument must be delicately constructed to provide the proper pitch and tone. “He worked on it for days; then one morning he came down to announce that he had solved it.

In March, 1919, he produced the first modern recorder,” said Carl. Soon afterwards, the lost recorder showed up in a junk shop near Waterloo station. However, the modern recorder effort was already launched. The chief difference between the recorder and the shepherd flute is one of refinement and range. The recorder is designed for concert music, whereas the shepherd flute is a folksong instrument.

In 1928 the Dolmetsch Foundation was established to provide Carl’s father with adequate workshop facilities to carry out the manufacture of early types of musical instruments under the highest standards of craftsmanship, research and the study of early compositions. “Father had decided he was getting too old to tour the world. He felt the time had come to have people come to him, so the foundation was established and the annual Haslemere Festival was launched,” his son reported. It was this annual festival that was the blueprint for Idyllwild’s Baroque and Early English Music Festival during the past two weeks.

Not only has the recorder a colorful and prominent past, but it has a great future, the British artist and manufacturer said. Modern composers are writing parts for recorders, and the instrument is popular among teachers. A new record features the Idyllwild visitor and his four children. “It’s a great deal easier to carry about than a harpsichord. You can stick in your pocket,” Dr. Carl Dolmetsch said.

American Literature Students and the Thoreau Challenge

Idyllwild Arts — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:55:32 +0000

by Molly Newman, Humanities Faculty

When Henry David Thoreau moved to a small cabin on the banks of Walden Pond, what did he hope to discover? Never content with mediocrity, Thoreau hoped to find nothing less than the meaning of life: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

157 years later, my American Literature class considered Thoreau’s endeavor with a healthy mixture of suspicion and reverence. “If he wants to simplify, why are his sentences so complicated?” one student asked. Someone else quipped: “Didn’t his mom do all his laundry for him?”

I love hearing the kinds of responses Thoreau provokes from my students. Reading Walden should be an uncomfortable, polarizing experience. Thoreau calls our comfortable lives into question, and if we don’t squirm, then we just might be a bit complacent. While I hardly consider IAA students to be complacent, I do think that they
can lose sight of the bigger picture while they are busily rehearsing, creating, studying, and socializing. For this reason, I asked my American Literature students to take the Thoreau Challenge: for one week, they had to make a change that would, ideally, make their life more meaningful.

They embraced the project with zeal. Some students decided to wake up earlier and walk or run through the woods; some students became vegetarian or vegan; one student took up meditation; another chose to be silent. A group of four girls camped out next to my house for four days!

At the end of the week, none professed to find the meaning of life. I think many realized, however, that discovery is unpredictable. To an individual paying attention, possibility is everywhere.

Below are excerpts from the essays my students wrote about their experience.

The founder of Buddhism, Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhartha, said in one of his writings, “If a man’s mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.” After this experiment, I felt like my mind was more pure than before and for this reason I had the ability to appreciate everything around me more. Being a vegetarian became more than just staying away from meat, it became a cleansing experience that made me realize how fortunate I am to live at a place that is so full of life and peace. It gave me the opportunity to appreciate nature and to understand how I can use it to inspire me in my daily life. Since I was not eating meat, I started to become more aware of all of the wild life that we have in Idyllwild. I have always known that there are a lot of animals where we live; I just never took the time to really acknowledge them. This project helped me learn to be grateful for what we have here and to use this for motivation in my day-to-day life. –Mariana Barba Cid

As Thoreau said, “there are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon”(890). I was unable to see the horizon ahead of me because I was the one holding myself back. I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I can now see myself going to college.
Thoreau’s ways helped inspire me to make lifestyle changes that helped me in getting myself back on track. I was able to fully commit to this project for a week, going to bed earlier every night but one, and I never would have expected the outcome to be so rewarding. I was able to become a more centered and balanced individual, not hindering myself by pointlessly going to bed late. I had been hoping to be more productive during the day, but I was never expecting to be as efficient as I was. It gives me such satisfaction to say that I am almost done applying to college and that next year I can see myself at a university. Thoreau has helped me become a more successful individual and I think that anyone would agree that he is awesome for doing so. –Gabby DiMarco

Speech is a human connection going back to campfires and telling stories. It’s an outlet for thoughts and emotion. Not only was my “speechless” period relatively depressing because of the fact that I wasn’t talking to people (and when I did I punished myself), but I was missing an easy outlet for emotion. I wish I could say I noticed something I hadn’t seen before or had a groundbreaking epiphany, but I did not. The only thing I realized is that I should talk to more people. Make more of an effort for connection; show the garrulous side of Emiley Miller. When I wasn’t supposed to talk at all, it made talking to people I didn’t know much easier. –Emiley Miller

The biting cold made it difficult for me to want to write, to need to produce something tangible. It was not that I did not have the drive to write my thoughts down, but the idea of removing my hands from my pockets was terrifying. I found that I was content with the idea of my words remaining inside of my head, something which usually makes me uncomfortable. Removing my hands from my inner thighs, I reached for my cell phone. The screen was covered in thick condensation, which froze between the creases of my fingerprints. I had been lying awake for almost six hours; it was about a half an hour past four. When my alarm went off one hour later, I found it impossible to separate myself from my sleeping bag. –Rebecca Cox

Life is not about trying to never get a scratch from falling – it is about loving each scar because you will never get the same wound again. Failure is what makes us human – learning from that failure is what makes us successful humans. Taking risks will shove you forward, and even if you fall after, you still made it further than the person who stood still. Living – it’s the same as dancing – it doesn’t matter how many turns you can do, unless you mess up, you cannot get better. –Amira Lambert

So I sat in a sort of meditative state and just listened, trying to take in what nature had to say: the trees were alive, telling gossip and stories to one another. I heard the traveling songs of the leaves and they rustled along. I heard the playing of the woodland creatures, chatter of the nearby kids walking to class, and most important thing of all: nothing. I really enjoyed this day because I believed that it was very important to let Her get in a few words, instead of us talking all of the time. –Randy Plummer

Don’t forget to have fun with Transcendentalism. The whole point is to have a childlike view of the world full of innocence and wonder. I definitely got a little child-like. One of my favorite memories from this adventure was lying in the tent with Meg during the day and playing with her stuffed giraffe. One little thing would set us off into hysterical laughter. Maybe it was the exhaustion or maybe it was that we had successfully transcended and in turn regressed to our childhood selves. –Madison Gerringer

After reading all of my students’ essays, I was struck by how sincere they all were. I was reminded yet again of why I love teaching this adventurous bunch of aspiring young artists. Like Thoreau, they aspire to something transcendent. Their passion allows them to understand “that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Drawing From Both Sides of Your Brain

Idyllwild Arts — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:05:05 +0000

The following is a repost from The The Huffington Post ARTS
by Brian D. Cohen
President, Idyllwild Arts Academy

Critics, mathematicians, scientists and busybodies want to classify everything, marking the boundaries and limits… In art, there is room for all possibilities. — Pablo Picasso

Once, right after I had given an assignment for a drawing class, a student asked me which side of her brain she should use to make the drawing. I suggested she use whatever she had. Another student with whom I’d worked for a while, and knew to be right-handed, started drawing with her left hand in order to use the right side of her brain (which controls the left side of the body). She took things literally.

It got me to thinking about this sides-of-the-brain thing, a genuinely innovative idea from neuroscience, which, like so many valid scientific insights, got reified, oversimplified and misinterpreted by popular psychology. The book Drawing from the Right Side of Your Brain, wildly popular and in print since 1979, was loosely based on cerebral hemisphere research of the 1960′s. All of a sudden people started copying drawings upside-down and looking around for a gestalt. Pretty much everything the book says would have already been known and taught by any decent drawing teacher, but getting millions of people to draw when they didn’t think they could was remarkable.

A quick surf of the web reveals the following characteristics and capacities of the two sides of your brain:

Left Brain | Right Brain

(You are also told that if you happen to be a teacher, you’re left-brained; if you can explain your opinions in words, you’re left-brained; if you bother to read a how-to book, you’re left-brained; better put away thatDrawing from the Right Side of Your Brain book).

Drawing, or participating actively in any of the arts, demands the entirety of ourselves — these undertakings engage bodily, intellectual, analytical and emotional capacities. The act of perception itself — making sense of what you see — and the subsequent complex process of interpreting and translating to paper what you observe, are extraordinarily active and consuming tasks, and they require your whole brain. Drawing, like musical ability, is not a single ability, but a set of abilities, working simultaneously.

Let’s stop calling ourselves right- or left-brained, bad at art, bad at math; we share every capacity, albeit to varying degrees. Categorizing yourself just gets you off the hook. Leaving the arts to artists is like leaving exercise to athletes — you can do it, it’s good for you, and no one should fault you for not making a living at it.

In a recent study, David Navon of the University of Haifa asked brain-damaged patients to copy a picture in which 20 small copies of the uppercase letter A were arranged to form the shape of a large capital H: “Patients with damage to the left hemisphere often make a simple line drawing of the H with no small A letters included; patients with damage to the right hemisphere scatter small A letters unsystematically all over the page.” The two hemispheres of our brain, working in tandem, see both the small A’s and the big H. So use whatever you’ve got.