Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA02141 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 10 Mar 2000 21:06:02 GMT Subject: Fwd: Portrait of an Artist's Mind Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 16:00:58 -0500 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas est veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "memetics list" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID: <20000310210125.AAA13194@camailp.harvard.edu@[128.103.125.215]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Portrait of an Artist's Mind
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/03.09/ed4portrait.html (and,
this one works, because I did this one myself, instead of just forwarding
something from someone else....)
By Eileen McCluskey
Melding the tools of cognitive development, developmental psychology,
art, brain-imaging technology, and education, Kim Sheridan is trying to
unlock the mystery of artistic taste.
It has taken years for Sheridan just to formulate this idea, which
reflects the path of her own life¹s work. After completing an
undergraduate degree in painting, Sheridan received a Fulbright
Scholarship to spend a year in Kenya, studying contemporary East African
art.
"What fascinated me was that I was living in a very different culture,
and yet I could communicate through visual art," she says. "That¹s when I
got the idea that there are basic human processes involved in creating
art, but also huge cultural differences in how art is expressed." Since
then, Sheridan has been trying to get a sense of how to connect
universally human artistic expression with its myriad forms. "I had no
background in the social sciences at the time, but all of the questions I
was coming up with pointed toward the field of cognitive development."
Sheridan went on to develop art classes for preschool through
middle-school students to foster their involvement in the arts. What she
found surprised her. "Unlike infants, who share innate preferences about
shapes and colors, preschoolers already differ in their artistic tastes,"
she says.
"Working with pre-schoolers showed me that as we grow older, we develop a
vast spectrum of tastes."
Intrigued, Sheridan wondered how artistic taste develops‹and how taste
influences artistic expression. Now a second-year doctoral student at
GSE, she is conducting pilot studies in both of these areas; her
investigation into the factors that develop artistic taste and
expression‹particularly in the mature artist‹involves using a
brain-imaging procedure known as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI). The study¹s participants, explains Sheridan, will view slides of
artwork while encased in a tunnel-like machine; its magnetic fields
indicate which areas of the brain actively respond to the artwork.
"I¹m trying to look at how aesthetic taste affects the way that people
understand artwork," Sheridan says. "By combining the brain imaging data
with interviews, I¹ll get a broader picture of how people both interpret
and create paintings."
"I really love designing experiments, testing out ideas, and building up
new knowledge through this process," Sheridan adds. "You can use the
brain-imaging data in research, but you can also make use of the messier,
qualitative data that shows up in educational settings. There is a way to
synthesize and bridge the various disciplines I¹m interested in; this is
what drew me to the Ed School in the first place."
Copyright 2000 President and Fellows of Harvard College
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