Wednesday, June 3, 2009

You're such an engineer...

Got into an interesting conversation at last night's NWPCG* meeting. We have a bunch of scientific types as members. Engineers who are project managers or cartographers, IT folks of various ilk, and so on.

It led me to think about brain balance again. I think the stereotype is that artists are all very non-linear, left brain types, and scientists are logical/rational right brain types. Of course, it doesn't really work out that way all the time. I'd always been pretty logo-rat, but in '92 I went into treatment for endometriosis. The medicine I was on put me into a temporary state of chemically induced menopause. What shocked me, and was the biggest learning experience, was the major shift in my cognitive functioning.

My ability to engage in academic debate flew out the window. I just wasn't interested in joining the kind of arguments that I'd delighted in just a few weeks earlier. My intuition blossomed like mad. I could look at the stuff on someone's desk, like the toys and bits and pieces that accumulate there, and know exactly what issues they were working on in their life. When I came off the medication, the logo-rat could make command appearances, but so could the intuitionist.

Working with polymer clay engages both parts. I make tools, and love to figure out "how to do it" with some odd shape or interconnected bits and bobs. And oh, I love to brainstorm with others!

*Northwest Polymer Clay Guild

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