“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...
Michael Shainblum – World Photographer and Videographer [Premium]
We recently had a chance to catch up with Michael Shainblum, an extraordinary videographer and photographer who found a wonderful outlet for his creativity and expression. Michael first discovered photography in a summer class he took in middle school. He rediscovered it again in the summer before high school when he got a digital camera and found he could take thousands of pictures in his backyard, looking for patterns in plants or macro pictures of bugs. Michael first started earning work as a professional photographer at the age of 16. We thought it was particularly touching that he had trouble getting other typical high school jobs because he wasn’t good at interviewing. Nowadays, Michael likes playing with time and motion, but still looks for interesting […]
Meet Jill of All Trades: KRISTA WELTNER
I had a great chance to catch up with uber-talented Krista Weltner yesterday. If you haven't watched her recent Master's work Partially Compensated, check it out now. When we posted it to our Facebook feed, here are some of the comments: "Ok, that made me cry....
Designing for Dyslexia
Despite the fact that dyslexics are over-represented in Art & Design, the field of User Design is surprisingly late to designing for dyslexia specifically in mind. It may be that some design is as good as it is because there are already dyslexics in design teams...
Dyslexia and Superhero Film Director Zack Snyder
With news that Batman vs. Superman just passed the $700 million globally, powerhouse film director Zack Snyder shares his story about dyslexia in Bloomberg. Zack is known for a series of blockbuster movies, beginning with Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, Legends of...
Higher Creativity of Dyslexic Children and Adolescents – New Research [Premium]
“…dyslexic children around the age of 10 years old were found to be particularly creative in our study…” – Kapoula et al. University Paris PLOS One 2016: 11(3). From creativity researchers in Europe, some striking new information about how well dyslexic students and adolescents performed on the Torrance Test of Creativity Thinking compared to non-dyslexic peers. Particularly large differences were noted in the areas of originality and elaboration. Figure 1 shows A, the test prompt, B, the drawing from an art student, C, a drawing from a non-dyslexic student, and D, a drawing from a dyslexic student. “When comparing the most creative group of students (i.e., from ENSAD) and the most creative group of dyslexic children and teenagers (i.e., from BRUXELLES) (Fig 2F, Table 9), the only […]
