The Groove Issue 76 - Tackle The Connection Between Intuition and Creativity
TACKLE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN INTUITION AND CREATIVITY
Last week I had the enormous privilege to give a TEDx talk at the University of Mississippi in front of an audience of almost 500 people on how artists and creatives invent the future. You can check out some some pictures of the event here and I will send a link to the full video when it is up on YouTube in about 3 weeks.
I can’t believe that my book “How Creativity Rules The World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold” (HarperCollins) will launch in 2 weeks! After 13 years gathering the information and 2.5 years writing and editing it, it will be a reality in your hands on March 15th and that will be the last day to claim the free bonuses.
Below I’m giving you a tight excerpt of my upcoming book. At the end of every chapter, there is an Alchemy Lab section so you can take actionable steps from what you’ve learned in that chapter and adapt them to your life. I have also condensed one here for you.
This was one of my favorite parts in my book to write and research. In fact, the topic of intuition in business and art comes up in three different chapters (albeit from different angles) because I think that it has not been researched enough or expounded in a way that doesn’t make you feel skeptical, confused or puzzled. I hope these chapters clear any misconceptions for you.
Why You Must Respect Your Intuition
Successful artists and entrepreneurs are very attuned to their intuition. It is an important part of their repertoire when it comes to creativity and problem solving.
What is intuition? It’s an accurate piece of information that doesn’t come from using our five senses, or from our minds, or our experiences. It comes from a much higher place than our physical perceptions. Intuition manifests as a flash of insight, or repeated series of insights. When you get hit more than once with the same message, don’t ignore it. Intuition is always right. What’s sometimes wrong is our interpretation of the intuitive message.
Creativity and Deep Self-Appraisal
Henri Matisse in his studio ca. 1926.
Henri Matisse was one of the most inventive artists of the twentieth century. He dared to give color a much greater expressive power than what other artists had done before him. As if on an acid trip, Matisse looked for fully immersive sensations by embarking on an adventure with colors that lasted his lifetime.
After many bold experiments, Matisse parted ways with using color to portray reality. Instead, he heightened his hues to a saturation level not seen before. When he exhibited these first experimental paintings at a salon in Paris in 1905, along with the works of other painter friends, they caused an immediate sensation. When a critic came to see the show, he called the group les fauves (the wild beasts).
Matisse started something that propelled him to fame and led him to a successful and lucrative career for five decades. Even today, almost seventy years after his death, his work looks fresh. It serves as a continuous source of inspiration, as well as imitation, for artists, designers, and brands.
Interestingly, Matisse wrote a lot about his own process. He stressed that in order to come up with fresh and creative ideas, he relied on his intuition.
Matisses’s Femme au chapeau, is a portrait of his wife, Amélie, from 1905. It was Matisse’s first painting using bold colors that didn’t correspond to reality, which he said came to him following his intuitive hunches.
What he called a “deep self-appraisal” worked better for him when he had time to commune with nature. Nature and solitude stimulated his intuition. Had he not trusted his gut feelings, he wouldn’t have made the bold decisions he did in 1905. Matisse defined intuition as “the expansion of our consciousness… which brings about … endlessly continued creation”.”
He called his flashes “the truth” because they were self-generated and unique to him. In 1906, he followed the same process, this time following his intuitive hunches. It was as if he injected his colors with steroids.
That’s how he painted Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life). Bonheur is a seven-feet-wide-by-six-feet-tall canvas, onto which Matisse turned a landscape into a stage, flanking the composition to look like the curtains of a theatre.
Bonheur was a radical departure from the past. When it was exhibited, American writer and art collector Gertrude Stein bought it on the spot. She immediately hung it in her dining room at 27, rue de Fleurus in Paris, where she held weekly salons attended by poets, writers, and artists.
Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life), 1906. The painting that made Picasso so jealous that he had to outdo Matisse with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
When Picasso, who until that time had had only modest success, saw Bonheur, he was shocked. He made it his mission to outdo Matisse. A year later he did, when he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, one of the most important artworks in history.
Matisse expressed his intuition “with purity . . . in the briefest manner by putting down, for instance, four or five spots of color, or by drawing four or five lines.” He attributed his choice of balancing colors and shapes in a way that hadn’t been seen before to his intuition. It continued to be a trademark of his work for years to come.
“Instinct” is where Matisse’s creative power lived, in feeling the sensations of the moment and allowing intuition to be the guide. “Feeling the sensations of the moment” is a combination of what modern intuition experts call “the body check” and “mindfulness.”
The body check is a quick way of taking a mental inventory of the impressions and feelings in and around you. You start with the weight of your body on a surface, and continue with the sounds you hear, the fragrances you smell, the things you see, and the taste in your mouth. Mindfulness is the practice of staying in the present moment by avoiding thoughts about the past or worrying about the future.
Establishing The Link Between Creativity and Intuition
A team of psychologists from the Queen Mary University of London and Goldsmiths University of London sought out to establish the link between creativity and intuition. To do so, they performed an extensive search of relevant databases like the Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, and Scopus. They combed through hundreds of studies that gathered data and interviews from Nobel Laureates from the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine as well as remarkable filmmakers and inventive chefs.
They identified the role of a “big leap” and how intuition contributes to scientific discoveries as well as business and artistic breakthroughs. Big leaps in knowledge occur if someone creates a new paradigm to solve a problem in the absence of any clear, reasoned path. This new piece or pieces of information cannot be explained by analysis or by following rational steps.
Someone who relies on a gut feeling to generate creative answers combines separate chunks of gradually acquired information about what could be working and boils them down to form a new coherent construct via associations.
The team of psychologists concluded that the role of intuition in creativity should never be neglected as it is often reported to be a core component of the idea generation process, which in conjunction with idea evaluation, are crucial phases of the creative process.
Depending on the complexity and importance of the question, your intuition can guide you to an answer that can be immediate, clear, and visceral. Or it may be very subtle, delivered as pieces of a puzzle, and take a week or even longer to surface. The key is always asking the right question, letting our mind interpret the symbols, and inviting your intuition to give you the right answer.
Alchemy Lab
• Take inventory of your senses. Every day, early in the morning, in silence, quickly scan your body sensations head to toe and mentally repeat them to yourself, including how your body feels, what you hear, what you see, what you taste, what you smell. Then, take a couple of deep breaths, and ask, “What are my goals for today?” Whatever the answer, symbol, or sensation, write it down in a journal or notebook and follow up with another question: “What’s the best way of accomplishing these goals today?” Write down those answers. Stay open and receptive to any other piece of information that may come up during the day. Keep writing and checking those answers periodically.
• Don’t let your mind get stuck. If you hear your mind protesting, I’m not getting anything, I’m totally blocked, that is valuable information too. Keep asking: “What is the block? Does the block have a shape? A name?” The first impressions, feelings, or thoughts that come to mind could be the answer. When you are afraid that you’re going to be wrong, you won’t hear your intuition. It is important you trust yourself and leave fear on the side. Second-guessing inhibits the flow of intuition, creativity, and business ideas.
Thank you again for the incredible response to my book! We are only two weeks away from launch date and I can’t wait for you to have it in your hands!
From now on the bonuses will only be available to those who preorder the HARDCOVER format.
Get it from Amazon, B&N or your favorite independent bookstore and claim FREE immediate access to my creativity online course broken down into practical modules, videos and PDFs to go at your own pace.
Additionally, you also get exclusive bonuses valued at $350.
Plus access to the monthly group Zoom calls which are priceless!
This program is guaranteed to spark a creative breakthrough in you, no matter what you do.
Read the many breakthroughs that past participants have experienced here.
All you have to do is send your purchase confirmation to book@mariabrito.com and you will be in.
All details are here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
For all these upcoming book-tour events, I am going to be giving a workshop instead of a book reading. I am all for giving you value and content that can enrich your lives and careers. You will be experiencing a version of my keynote speech that I give in companies.
Remember that by buying tickets to these events you will benefit the independent bookstores, these are the ones that keep the magic happening! Choose your favorite and come hang out with me!
The capacity of both in-person and online events is limited, please secure yours now.
The ONLY in-person event will be at The Strand in New York on Monday, March 14 at 7:00 pm EST – I would absolutely LOVE to see you there! Tickets here.
Next stop is virtual on Wednesday, March 16 at 6:00 pm PST (9:00 pm EST) with the extraordinary Book Soup in LA. One of the most iconic bookstores in California! I am bringing my Angeleno friend Josh Spector with me that night. Josh is one of the most creative and sharpest people I’ve ever met. A veteran of content creation, he was the director of social media for the Academy Awards for many years and today he helps thousands of creators and entrepreneurs with his courses and materials in “For the Interested”. Tickets here.
Then I go online again on Thursday, March 17 at 6:00 pm EST with The Lit Bar– a fabulous bookstore in the Bronx, NY owned by Noëlle Santos, and I am bringing a special guest with me: the incomparable June Ambrose, a visionary who shaped the style of hip-hop in the 90s, became Jay Z’s stylist in the 2000s and is now the creative director of Puma. Tickets here.
My final online stop is in sunny Miami on Tuesday, March 22 at 7 pm with Books & Books, the celebrated and super special bookstore that has several locations all over Florida. That day I will be joined by my dear friend Carlos Betancourt, a multidisciplinary artist who has lived in Miami most of his life and has been instrumental in shaping the art scene of that city for many decades. His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Met New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Bass and the PAMM in Miami Florida and many more. Tickets here.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
There are no affiliate links in this email. Everything that I recommend is done freely.
THE CURATED GROOVE
A selection of interesting articles in business, art and creativity along with some other things worth mentioning:
How Identity Influences Your Creativity.
How to spot an employer that won't stifle your creativity.
Welcome to the metaverse, where the art is virtual but the headache is real.
How London is pricing artists out.
How NFTs Can Move Beyond Arts and Entertainment
Why is Artemisia Gentileschi just now getting her due?