“You’re so good at math and science.  You could have a real future if you follow that path – perhaps a career in engineering.  Don’t pursue something that you can’t make a career out of.” Paraphrasing.

When you Google “right-brained person,” words like imaginative, creative, artistic and intuitive cover the SERP like wallpaper. Search “left-brained” and you get what appears to be the exact opposite: factual, logical, methodical, mathematical.

Some scientists would have you believe that, because of my right handedness, I should be predominately left-brained and firmly entrenched in“mathematical” and“logical” territory.  And, in some ways, they would be absolutely right.  I love math class; full of problems and equations.  I love, especially, that there is always a solution–to solve for x you divide this by that–multiply your result–take it to the third power–you’re done!

Working in a creative field, I’m faced with many problems from clients–our brand doesn’t reflect our organization, our logo looks old, we need a set of icons that represent our processes–with the expectation that I will come up with the solution in visual form. But, when you’re a designer and the problem is unique to each client, there’s not a list of formulas to memorize. There are solutions, of course, but never that one, perfect, universal answer. 

To a right-brained person: the possibilities are endless! <insert happy face emoji> 

To a left-brained person: the possibilities are endless! <insert freaking out emoji>  

I recently came across an article on the Atlanta Magazine website about Robert Schneider, a graduate student in the mathematics department at Emory University, the lead singer of The Apples in Stereo(of TheElephant 6 Recording Co. fame) and my hero.  In the interview, Schneider recounts an experience when his left and right brain hemispheres merged while working with old sound recording equipment that was frequently breaking down:

The repairman made a suggestion: learn how to fix it yourself. Schneider had always fiddled with electronics; as a kid, he had a RadioShack electronics experiment kit and a bunch of primitive recording gear that he constantly toyed with. So, he went to RadioShack and bought a soldering iron and a book called Basic Electronics. Back at the studio, he opened the book and, on one of its first pages, found an equation known as Ohm’s Law: Voltage equals current flow multiplied by resistance, or V=IR.

“It’s the fundamental law of electronics,” he said.“The moment I saw that on the page, this feeling washed over me. I can remember it as if light were shining down on the page. Aaaah!” He mimics the sound of an angelic choir.“I realized that, to record my album and make my art, I needed the tape machine running. But what did that mean? The tape machine was nothing but an instrument supporting my art, my feelings, my ideas, my friendships with my bandmates, and my income at the time. I realized that all those things, every single signal that ran through every single speaker I’d ever heard in my life, every piece of music I’d ever heard come off a record, every time I’d ever sung into a microphone or plugged in a synthesizer, all those experiences were made true by this simple equation. All the beauty and wonder could boil down to one thing, Ohm’s law, and that was math. It blew my mind.”

Math became a hobby for Schneider the way painting or poetry might be for others. Despite the popular perception that music and math are products of opposing sides of the human brain, Schneider discovered math could be a pursuit just as creative and spiritual as music had always been for him.

Math is artistic. Creativity can be logical. Maybe I’m not making non-pythagorean music scales or building a mind-controlled synthesizer, but I am doing lots of research and developing solutions for complex problems. And maybe I’m creating some formulas of my own along the way. 

Back in my guidance counselor’s office, I told her: “nope, not a mistake.”

Creative Musings from a Confused Left-Brainer

My mom likes to tell this story about a pivotal moment in my life that occurred in a guidance counselor’s office.

My mom likes to tell this story about a pivotal moment in my life that occurred in a guidance counselor’s office. It was my junior year of high school and the counselor called me in to fix what she assumed was a mistake on my schedule for the upcoming semester. The egregious error?  5th period life drawing class.

Condensed

When my friend sent me this video of Kia LaBeija, an artist and activist who was born HIV positive voguing and reading her poetry on the subject, I felt immediately impacted by the piece. HIV evokes many images after decades of victim blaming, homophobia, and general miseducation about the disease. However, Kia is working to change those perspectives through her own identity and self-discovery.

Voguing with Kia LaBeija | Iris

As you watch, you become mesmerized by Kia. Her voice, her body, her movements, her words are so beautifully woven together that the picture that remains is only of the things that she also names, “Artist, Dreamer, Woman, Lover.” By utilizing several art forms to dismiss stereotypes about the virus, and stereotypes about herself in the process, she makes the disease the least interesting thing about her in the video.

This multi-layered approach to storytelling through poetry, dance, autobiography and video serves to do more than just create a visceral impact for the viewer, but it also shows that Kia’s talents and humanity lies in who she is and not what disease she inherited when she was born. She is not just HIV positive, clearly she is so much more.

Through this proclamation, she is owning a status that would identify her, refuting it through her presentation, and then defining her own identity.

Changing perceptions and stigmas in society is one of the most difficult challenges in our work, but this is a great example of how presenting incredible storytelling instead of presenting your case can be the most effective way to change perceptions.

A True Movement: Kia LaBeija and Human Storytelling

In our office, we often talk about how to represent our clients through more than just their work.

In our office, we often talk about how to represent our clients through more than just their work. We do that by telling a human story. I think that human story comes from knowing the humans within their work and organization, which is a large part of our discovery process.