left and right handed creative people

Lucid Lounge
1

hi

I have been training as an artist and I am naturally creative in almost everything I do.
I was thinking today that many people quote that “left hand people tend to be more creative” and that there are only 1 in 10 people are left handed.
So this got me thinking if the suggestion that left handed people are more creative than those with right handed, then predominately in the art world and the creative industries many of those people would have left handed, but many of my friends who are also practice in art and art related subjects are right handed.
So is this myth that left handed people are more creative is right or have right handed people way of thinking now dominates the art world and industries.

I tend to think in a different manner about all kinds of subjects and in a completely different train of thought. Some people may think that I am put myself as better, this is wrong, as I see everyone including myself as equals. But if the myth is correct then surely there should be more left handed people making it as well known artists.

I interested on what you think of the subject and would also like to know if you are left or right handed? Also if you intend to become an artist or work in an art-related job ? Also if you have friends or collegues who are artists or work in an art-realted job and if they are left or right handed?

sorry for all the questions but I am naturally inquistive.
sam

2

Both quotations aren’t very precise. Well, the first is definately wrong, I know a lot of left handed people who are just normal, or even less creative than right handed people, so I would say handedness has nothing to do with creativity.

About the right handed/left handed proportion: these proportions are usually valid in the US and Europe, but there are other parts of the World where there are more left handed people. Also, remember parents and teachers still force lefty students to use their right hands. I’m naturally lefty, I studied in a quite well talked about school when I was younger and the teacher forced me to write with my right hand nonetheless.

Luckily, I became ambidextrous, but it’s common for people who are forced to change their main hands to become challenged in some quite simple communication skills.

As I told you up there, I’m naturally lefty, was forced to become a righty and now I’m ambidextrous (though I would rather have been a lefty all the way, because I simply can’t do some things—like drawing—because one of my hands is better with proportions but has an awful trace and the other one is unable to make things proportional, but has a firm, elegant line).

Though I have art as a hobby, I can’t picture myself living only as an artist.

Most of my most tallented artist friends are left-handed—both for poetry and drawing/painting, but that may be just a coincidence…

No, we will never forgive you :tongue:

3

I’ve actually never heard that quote, I remember something about left handed people being evil though eyes you suspiciously

My personal belief though is that whichever hand you use has nothing to do with your creativity, why should it? Creativity comes from many parts of the brain and can take many different forms.

Maybe it’s because left handed people sort of start out outside of the general sheep, the majority of the population being right handed it sets them apart. Due to that maybe theres a much higher probability for them to tap into the alternative creative mindset?

I’m right handed but also pretty much ambidextrous, and I will be working in an art related job (3d animator) when im done with the degree. I’ve always seen things differently myself as well I think it’s something quite a few people have , but once there’s the spark you have to cultivate it.

It just makes me wonder how many people had huge amounts of creativity and just never really did anything with it and became an accountant or something

I think there were also some theories about creativity being relevant to one side of the brain but I don’t know where to look to verify any of those

Edit:Geeez way to cover all my points while I was still busy typing the post bruno le tear :cry:

4

I didn’t realise people were forced to become right handed. It sounds absurd thinking about, in the uk where i live they make some things like left handed scissors. But I can use my right hand for some simple things such as typing and cooking but, I haven’t tried using it for artistic purposes.

I don’t know this exactly as I am not a brain scientist but from what I have read, the right side of the brain controls the left hand tends to deal with abstract thoughts and can make connections between random subjects and similiar realted information, whether it is visual or mental information. Whereas the left brain side is concerned with the right hand tends to govern logic and linear thinking and say if you can follow rules exactly would give you a good idea of this. But take my word for it, do some research if you want to know more.

I do agree, you could waste the oppurtunity that you were born with, I am sure many people do, I was kinda lucky as both my parents are creative, my dad is an architect and my mum is ceramicist. Also every great grandfather and previous generations has been an engineer or art-related (art or design) job or business. So you could say it runs in the family but I don’t take that too seriously as I believe in reincarnation.

You are pretty much following the same course I am following, as I am doing a college course for 10weeks to gain a qualification for 3d studio max, so I can work in my dads office doing 3d visualisation, as there is a lot of new work and money in this area. Also from what people have told me there are still loads of places to get work which sounds good.

If anybody has some info, would be greatly appreaciated.
sam

5

Interesting that you only relate creativity to art. Well, I am both right-handed AND a terrible artist, but I do consider myself to be a very creative person nevertheless, as anybody who has ever read my dream journal would know. Art aside, I compose music, write stories, and invent random things every so often that I’m never going to use, and I can see myself going on to a career involving those things.

Unfortunately, I don’t know anybody in person who is an artist or even makes a hobby of art, so I’m not in a position to know there. I do know several left-handed people, however, and they’re no more creative (perhaps even less so) than the average person. So it doesn’t seem as though there’s much to this rumour…

6

Oh, here in Brazil it’s forbiden to do that, it’s considered an abominable crime for it may lead to to serious mental and motor diseases. And we do have the lefty scissors too :cool:, though I’m used to righty stuff (scissors, can openers etc)—I manage to use all of them with my left hand, and sometimes I even get righty friends asking me to open their cans! :tongue: I can now use both my hands for everything, but I’m still predominantely lefty.

7

sorry if you thought I meant just art, when I mentioned art-related industries, I meant anywhere you could use a creative energy, such as you say music, stories, poetry or anything else you can think of. I know many people who do this and enjoy it a lot. But for me I don’t know anyone who is involved in a creative industry and is left handed.

8

I definitely have the traits of a right-brained person, I am silent, meditative, emotional, math gives me a burning desire to die, but I can’t even grab a pen with my left hand. Go figure.

9

like what I was saying before, you don’t need to use a pen to be creative, somebody who makes music could be equally creative but may also hate using pens/pencils also.

10

I meant I’m right-handed.

11

I’m left handed and I play eight instruments. I also write short stories and act.
More creative lefties:
Paul McCartney
David Bowie
Ringo Starr
Bob Dylan
Jimi Hendrix
Bela Fleck (I’m going to see him!)
M.C. Escher
Michelangelo
Jerry Seinfeld
Curt Kobain
Bach
Robert Plant

Obviously, there are a lot of right handed people in the art world, too, but lefties are represented better in the art world than in reality. Meaning if 10:1 is the ratio of rights to lefts in population, than it is something like 10:3 or 10:4 in the art world.

12

I’m left handed, but I use my right hand for some things. I’m not sure how creative I am. I’m studying physics so I dont think I’ll ever have an art related job, but I love music, so I’m trying to teach myself guitar. Maybe if I get good at that I’ll be more creative. Also, although I cant draw, I have pretty good mspaint skills… :razz:

13

Where’s Leonardo?

14

Leonardo was ambidextrous, and did most of his stuff with the right hand (though he used the left one a lot, considering most of his codices are written in mirror-language).

15

I find it odd that left and right handed people need to use completely different sides of the brain to use each hand. But if it’s true that they do and if it’s true creativity is mainly focused on one side and logic etc on the other then you could theorise left handed would more of a predisposition to tap into their creativity by just living a normal life not looking for it, where as a right handed equivelant could go into business and work with numbers and never tap into that side of things without making the extra effort. Theoretically theorising theories of course though

16

It is interesting that so many well known people are left handed.

you could maybe not be creative and just be visually intelligient, in the sense the logical part of your brain senses the logic in the patterns you see, but as a training scientist you are couscious of it whereas an artist uses the same skill but isn’t copuscious of it but just rely’s on it to make art or something creative. Making pictures in MSpaint has the same explanation but in revers as you are the drawer making the complex patterns rather than you reading them.

17

Alright. So, as usual, I kinda have a hard time placing myself in a category, because I’m sort of everywhere at once.

I am traditionally right-handed, but there are certain things that I do far better with my left hand, and recently I’ve found that the two are naturally balancing themselves out for whatever reason. In addition, a lot of the things that I do with my right hand I’m not good at with my left simply for, it seems, lack of practice; my handwriting with my left hand can, for instance, be easier to read then my right-hand handwriting, but it takes far longer to write.

I find this all rather odd, since I used to be exclusively right-handed, and wasn’t much good at using my left hand for much of anything. As I’ve gotten older, though, the two have, as I said, been balancing themselves out on their own. It’s a strange thing, but certainly not unwelcome. I’ll take another good hand any day. :content:

Additionally, I’ve always been known for having really balanced hemispheres; I’m both highly logical and highly creative. For instance, I love to write science fiction, because writing is one of my favorite activities, and also one of the most natural for me, and I can’t get enough scientific info to be satisfied no matter how hard I try. In the creative realm, I usually write poetry and fiction on my own time, as well as play the guitar (I write all of the music I play, too) and create visual art both by drawing and by using my computer. A lot of these disciplines blend into one another; I write all the lyrics for the bands I’m in, as well as composing the tunes for them and integrating them into the rest of the music and my guitar playing. I absolutely love creative pursuits, and they constitute my main form of entertainment; if given free time, I will typically begin creating art prolifically. Once I get an idea for a new creation, I generally can’t let it alone, and have to bring it into existance before I can be satisfied.

However, as I said, I am also highly logical. I am reknowned among those who know me for being an excellent debater (if someone who doesn’t know with me disagrees with me on some topic, those around who do know me will frequently warn them as to what they’re getting into :tongue: ), and my analytical essays are well-respected by both my peers and those above me in the social hierarchy. I delight in complex mathematics, and can talk for hours about scientific theory, in just about any area (though physics and biology tend to be my favorites), and my personal philosophies and beliefs are based entirely in logic, to the greatest extent possible.

So, as usual, I’m an odd anomomly who’s too ambiguous to really prove anything. It’s impossible to discern from my propensities, skills, and behavior whether my handed-ness has anything to do with my other personal attributes, since both are highly expansive and/or inclusive, but I’m something of a curiousity nonetheless. Here’s to being the all-category-fitting skeleton key! :content:

18

As you get older, you go through a number of cycles running in years of 7 but it won’t happen exactly on the point these, sometimes it can occur when you are 20 or 22, but anyway this is natural reaction to growing up and it this that in everbody happens, such as for you maybe the balancing act is of your left or right hands. (if you don’t understand this, please do not ask me specifics as it can’t be talked that way.)

I am betting that once you come up with an idea, and start to pursue it you try to get it done quite quickly but it may be difficult to finish, and by which time you have a new idea, and the previous idea gets lost in a number of ideas. I am only asking as this is how I used to behave until I trained myself to finish stuff, as I have a lot of unfinished work.

This is the sort of thing I do all the time, but nowadays there aren’t so many people about who I can have this sort of conversations with (do you use msn messenger?) but I am always up for a new ones, but I tend to be based more in philosphy and art rather than physics.

Logic has been proven that it doesn’t hold any strength, below is excerpt of this being proven:

the quote above is taken from a topic called “agree to disagree”

19

I’m a lefty AND gemini, what do you think about that!

I remember getting descriminated against. Especially the school yard when I couldn’t play baseball because there was no gloves for lefties, even if I tried batting kids would call me queer because I stood on the other side of the plate. Teachers would slap my wrist with a ruler when I wrote lefty. And then on my way home I would get beat up and spit on and the bigger kids would say call me a freak.

That is what “could” happen one day if we continue to let prejudices get out of hand.

Now about my skillz, i snowboard, snowskate, skimboard, want to get into surfing. I love reading and I am an aspiring writer of fiction.

We all know right brain controls left side of body and left brain right side of body. Left brain is associated with all things material, space, time, facts. Right hemisphere has creativity, intuition, feelings, and psychic powers in it, (I am quite naturally psychic by the way too). I’d have to say there is probably enough evidence to back natural lefties being naturally more creative.

20

That sounds pretty bad, I hope you have recovered from it now, as a teenager i was bullied through school for been different, nothing to do with been left-handed but it took me a long time to recover, but in some ways I actually prefer that it happened because it has made me a better person.
But when I was in high school i was on the cricket team and like baseball I had to hit from the other side, also as a bowler I had to swing my arm different to other people plus run round the different side of the wickets. If you don’t understand cricket you may not understand what I am talking about.

I agree, though that kind of prejudice is almost been removed from schools here in the UK, but for some getting spots can be equally bad, though bullies have been cracked down a lot here now, getting severe punishment for what they have done and sometimes been expelled from school. Though from what I have heard off people on this site, kids in the USA have a lot more to deal with.

well that isn’t totally correct, this is an excerpt from another site where I posted the first original post I made to start this topic off: