or what we get wrong about creativity — For those with an interest in creativity and creative thinking, there is a wealth of misinformation and misunderstanding to contend with. Some of these misunderstandings are encapsulated in the three most influential myths regarding creativity; the art myth, the eureka myth, and the genius myth. This article examines the genius…

Color Perception in Plants For experimental philosopher and artist Jonathon Keats — the world is a playground. Unbound by conventional thinking, he pushes at the limits of our experience by creating physical manifestations of imaginative thought experiments. Such experiments challenge us to consider and contemplate our world in a way…

by Carl Jennings You enter a cylindrical structure through a rectangular door. Inside the space is simple and empty; no ornamentation, just a minimalist sense of space and materials; wood, stone and concrete. The room is…

By Carl Jennings “Colors speak all languages.” — Joseph Addison, Essays on the Pleasures of the Imagination (1828)[1] Sinoper, Falu, Gamboge and Watchet: A strange and alien language perhaps, but one that speaks to the myriad ways in which colors can reveal themselves. Most of us can see these colors quite easily, but we…

What nail polish can teach us about color perception. — Let’s start with a simple question. What color is the square below? Is it blue or green? This question was posed to members of the Inter-Society Color Council in a survey, and the results were interesting. Men were split 60/40 in favor of blue, whereas women were more in agreement…

Tetrachromacy in Humans Two to three million colors, that is the approximate number the typical human eye can see. This is due primarily to the fact that our eyes contain three different types of photoreceptors, known as cones, that are responsible for detecting wavelengths in the visible spectrum, with different…

In “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971), feminist art historian Linda Nochlin turned the commonly accepted ideas of genius upside down. She demonstrated how greatness has as much, if not more, to do with social access (education, current ideas and trends, patronage, distribution, etc.) as it does…

The curious history of black and white dreams The question “Do you dream in color?” is one that most of us have probably been asked, or have considered at some point. If so, what would you answer? Do you remember what your dreams look like? Are they in color or…

Color is a code, a sign, a message –we use it to communicate and in turn, it has the power to shape how we think and feel. For the last 500 years or so, black has been making its way to the front of the line as the color of…