Recently I had such a nice visit to the Seattle Art Museum. It reminded me of how well dyslexic strengths can be cultivated in the multisensory experiences that are museums. This past summer we had had a visit by Yuko Tsuji, a dyslexia advocate in Japan who...
The Beautiful World of Jarrett Camp
"I use my dyslexia as a form of artwork. When I create a composition of a piece, usually there's another piece upside-down." — Jarrett Camp Jarrett Camp is an award-winning fine artist based in Los Angeles. He is a stipple artist who creates large works that...
Dyslexia, Art, and Science [Premium]
“Artists and scientists are curious creatures always looking for patterns…. And that’s because patterns communicate larger insights about the world around us.” — Rebecca Kamen Many dyslexic people work in fields that involve science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and art, and those career choices may be due to personal characteristics like curiosity as well as cognitive strengths involving analytical ability, creative problem solving, visualization, and hands-on problem solving. In our survey of careers of dyslexic adults in our network (please fill out here if you haven’t already), out of 106 people who answered, 42 had careers in science, technology, medicine, engineering, or the visual arts. That’s almost 40% in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) professions! If that is so, is our education preparing students for […]
Creative Math Educator: Our Story of Dyslexia and Math
Paula Beardell-Krieg is an innovative math educator and paper artist who brings all types of math wonder and discovery in her work as a math educator. As an example, check out her flexagon below. I recently had the chance to talk with her about her experiences...
Congratulations Steven! Season 2 Lego Masters
Congratulations to Steven Erickson and his brother Mark for winning the title of Lego Masters! We previously interviewed Steven in our June 2021 issue where he talked about his dyslexia and how making things always came easy to him although reading and spelling...
Master Storyteller and Teacher Caldecott Winner Jerry Pinkney
"I truly believe dyslexia made me the achiever I am in my art, and it made me who I am as a person..." - Jerry Pinkney It is with great sadness that we learned that Jerry Pinkney, one of the greats of children illustration passed away in October at the age of...
The Visual Poetry of Rebecca Kamen
"It wasn't until I became a college professor myself that a friend and fellow teacher figured out that I had dyslexia... I go out in the world and learn through experience, such as talking to astrophysicists and neuroscientists in their laboratories." - Rebecca Kamen...
Johnpaul Jones: Native American Architect [Premium]
“Where Native people come from, everything’s not in straight lines.” – Johnpaul Jones Johnpaul Jones is one of the world’s leading architectural architects and landscape designers, and he is also dyslexic. He was the lead design consultant for the National Museum of the American Indian, the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, The Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum, Vancouver Land Bridge, Mountains to Sound Greenway Plan, Oregon Zoo Educational Center, Longhouse Educational and Cultural Center, and Gorilla Conservation Research Center, among many, many others. He has said that his aesthetic was inspired by his Choctaw – Cherokee mother’s four world perspective: natural animal, spiritual, and human. Johnpaul describes his early life as being a “bad boy” and “dyslexic.” He struggled in school, and […]
Steven Erickson LEGO Master Season Two!
Congratulations to Steven Erickson and his brother Mark who won a coveted spot on the second season of Lego Masters to compete for $100,000. Steven and his brother Mark have long been known to the LEGO community. You can find Steven HERE. I have...
Extraordinary Artist: Vincent [Premium]
“When you have dyslexia and you don’t know that’s what it is, you assume you’re not intelligent — and your self-confidence is taken away.” – Vincent Fantauzzo Vincent grew up in a crowded public housing flat with his mother and four siblings. He left school at 13, barely able to read and write, and got mixed up in street fights and general delinquency. “I spent my life hiding and hustling, feeling ashamed, not being good enough, not being smart enough and pretending to be someone I wasn’t…” – Vincent Fantauzzo While he was in school, Vincent remembered wanting to get kicked out of class rather than stand up and read aloud. He wondered why other students could read and he could not. “You can be dyslexic […]
DYSLEXIC CHOREOGRAPHERS: Touching Others Through Dance
It's mesmerizing and powerful...Charlotte Edmond's choreographed underwater ballet that was meant to convey the experience of being depressed and at the same time overcome the stigma that exists about mental illness. >>>WATCH VIDEO BELOW This remarkable...
Beautiful Minds – What New Research Shows Dyslexia and Artists Have in Common [Premium]
BBC Science: “…artists had increased neural matter in areas relating to fine motor movements and visual imagery. The research, published in NeuroImage, suggests that an artist’s talent could be innate…these detailed scans revealed that the artist group had significantly more grey matter in the area of the brain called the precuneus in the parietal lobe.” From Cerebral Cortex 25:3502-3514: “we found that connectivity between multiple reading-related areas and areas of the default mode network, in particular the precuneus, was stronger in dyslexic compared with nonimpaired readers.” In an interesting study comparing drawing ability and enrollment in art student group with structural brain studies examining brain matter density in specific areas, researchers found greater representational art ability and enrollment in an art school (Royal College of Art […]