The most important thing I came away with from the Blogher Conference is something I actually got at a party we were invited to at the wonderful company Adaptive Path: Get your brain up on the wall.
I can’t believe how hard this concept is for me. I have always sketched, doodled, painted, knitted and generally fidgeted with my hands my whole life. And it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a TED podcast of Sir Ken Robinson, talking about how our educational system kills creativity did I finally understand what happened. Sir Ken spoke about Gillian Lynne, a famous choreographer who, as a child in the 1930’s was taken to a doctor to find out why she couldn’t sit still in school. After examining her, and hearing from her mother how Gillian was disruptive in class and a problem at school, the doctor pulled Gillian’s mother aside privately, leaving the girl in his office where a radio was playing. As soon as they left Gillian got up and started moving to the music. Able to see what was happening in his office the doctor said, “Your daughter’s not sick Mrs. Lynne, she’s a dancer.”
I think that’s what happened to me. As a child in Catholic schools I was constantly told to stop doodling and to pay attention, I even remember getting my knuckles wacked with a ruler for drawing on my work. No one recognized that I needed to doodle to pay attention. While I wasn’t a disruptive student in any way, there was no honoring the fact that I was an artist. So I hid it. I’ve hidden my work for years and have always felt a bit embarrassed by my drawn up client notes.
This is where Adaptive Path comes in, after being inspired by the wonderful folks at AP I am coming out of the creativity closet and hanging my head up on the wall. I’ve decided it really is ok to doodle all over everything and even sit in a corner at a party and draw people’s feet in my sketchbook if I want to (hence the drawing above, from the aforementioned party.) In fact I’m not going to stop until the whole white wall surrounding my desk is filled with a bulging capacity of color and line.
Take that Sister Mary Donata!
One Comment
Excellent post, Amie! I love the sketch.
I don’t think enough attention is paid to the different ways in which people learn. I recently read a post by some people complaining about how literate reading/writing seems to be going out of style. I don’t think that will ever be true, but I hope that writing can work with video and other mediums to create work that reaches a larger audience,
Maybe some day you’ll publish a book with sketches and thoughts about the tech life!