over the summer just past I completed about 3 dozen

paintings  of this 12″ x 12″ format…. here are just a few and I hope to post more , along with lots of new student work  SOON !!

New Work from Summer

Here it is …..#7  hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading these..

BUT HOME IN…

Meditation and mindfulness techniques can help bring a measure of focus to your daydreaming.  “positive, constructive daydreaming is where you ‘re thinking through an issue or doing some mental simulations of possible futures,”Kaufman suggests. “that can be very productive. But what isn’t productive is a type of meditation through rumination, which doesn’t seem to be helpful to creativity.” Meditation can help hone the mental muscle to enhance concentration, he adds, but we tend to ‘focus too much on the ability to  concentrate on the  outside world” instead of training people to plumb the depths of their own inner world – where there is so much fertile soil for creativity.

Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman

LET YOUR MIND WANDER…

ONE APPARENT PARADOX IS THE TENSION BETWEEN DAYDREAMING AND MINDFULNESS, TOW APPARENTLY OPPOSING FORCES THAT ARE BOTH CRUCIAL TO THE CREATIVE PROCESS.  ” THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN MIND WANDERING AS THE OPPOSITE OF ‘GOOD’ THINKING IS A FALSE DICHOTOMY,” SAYS KAUFMAN. ” A  LOT OF DAYDREAMING AND MIND- WANDERING- LETTING THE MIND GO SPONTANEOUSLY WHERE IT WANTS TO GO – IS VERY CONDUCTIVE TO ‘GOOD’ THINKING, OR AT LEAST  IT CAN BE.”

DR. SCOTT BARRY KAUFMAN

EMBRACE OPPOSING FORCES

HIGHLY CREATIVE PEOPLE TEND TO WELCOME PARADOXES, MELDING TWO SEEMINGLY CONTRADICTORY IDEAS THAT LEAD  TO GREATER INNOVATION.

“There are a lot of so-called dichotomies that aren’t really dichotomies at all,” says Kaufman. For example, when it comes to the creative process, there’s no sharp demarcation between work and play. Other lines blur as well. ”  People who are really creative are good at trusting and having faith in their intuition but also at being rational in their analysis of whether or not something is correct.” Strength and sensitivity also seem contradictory, but the distinction may not always be so clear . “Creative people tend to have extraordinary sensitivity  but also are capable of staying true to their values, even in challenging environments.” Highly creative people have a tendency for post-traumatic growth, an ability to learn from distressing experiences.

Dr. Barry Scott Kaufman

I will be showing my work during the month of December at the Goodman Community Center in Madison WI. The opening reception will be on Sunday , December 9th, from 1-4pm.

If you are in the area I’d love for you to stop by !

3. Break Beyond IQ

“Standard ways of thinking about intelligence leave out the whole person,” says Kaufman. “They leave out the passions or the values that one holds, the personal goals and dreams that someone has and  what they want to achieve, as opposed to  imparting a certain task on the person.”Frank X. Barron , a psychologist who pioneered the study of creativity in the 1960s, broke away from the longtime assumption that intelligence was the essential trait of highly creative people.  Scientists now agree with Barron that to understand creativity , you need to look beyond the IQ test. ” There’s this traditional notion of intelligence solely comprising  cognitive information processing , like we’re robots, our ability to problem-solve abstract information,” says Kaufman. “But I do think that’s a hindrance, because intelligence is moe broadly an adaptation to our environments, and the creative thought processes that come into play are so connected to being able to adapt to any environment, not just for abstract information that is derived from your everyday life.