Turquoise!

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

After having experienced some unsettling critiques in our college years, we both came to the conclusion that our best work came from a more supportive and positive learning environment than that of the harsh “no-holds-barred” environment of the art schools we had attended.

We still believe and practice that positive philosophy in our teaching and painting workshops. Jonah Lehrer has written about an interesting twist on creativity in his book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In a study conducted by Charlan Nemeth, a psychologist at UC-Berkeley, subjects were shown color slides and asked to identify each of the colors, an easy but tedious task. After this, the slides were shown again, and participants were asked to free-associate after each color was shown. The answers were predictable. After a blue slide, participants free-associated with the words “sky” or “ocean”, etc.

However, if the group were initially shown a blue slide and asked to identify it and Nemeth’s planted assistant shoute…