I’ve been paying attention to things with a different mindset then I did when I was younger. One thing that I realized is that I’m a visual learner. I did pretty well in grade school, but I entered college and grad school I definitely felt more challenged with certain topics. Things like statistics and calculus sent me seeking tutors. I majored in science so there were a lot of those classes. In grad school, I took an ornithology class (study of birds) and struggled remembering the scientific names of birds. Geez, my thesis was about birds…surely, I would need to know these words. Why was it so hard? I just accepted it all and continued on the best I could and earned my degree.
Fast forward a few decades and here I am realizing I am a visual learner. I noticed that when I tried to remember something, if I could visualize it, I could remember it. For example, tell me a phone number and I’ll forget it. Write down a phone number and I’ll remember. Because, I can go back into my memory and visualize the numbers I saw written on paper. Why didn’t I ever notice this before? Instead, I stuck with rote memorization – repeating things over and over and over…hoping they would stick.
This may sound like a random thing to be posting today. However, I realize that this is part of who I am as an artist. When I think about a new project, I first visualize it. It is like I have a fuzzy photo in my mind that I can pull up when I need to reference my design idea.
I’m grateful for the convenience of cell phones, so I snap lots of photos of things that catch my attention. When I scroll through my images, I love stumbling on the photos that I took that might inspire a new creation. The mushroom above was taken for that reason. If I didn’t take the photo, I would eventually forget about this interesting specimen that popped into my yard this year. I haven’t decided what exactly to do with it…but finding it re-inspired me.
I wish it hadn’t taken so long to discover my learning style. But, I’m sharing it with you to consider for yourself. Are you a visual, analytical, visceral learner or something else? How does this impact your creative inspiration? When you start a new project, what do you see?
~Nanette