The creative side to being dyslexic: Are people with dyslexia more creative?
There is an on-going debate about dyslexia and creativity, with some arguing that there may be a link between the two. If there is a relationship, the question is whether individuals with dyslexia are more creative in their own right or, whether their creativity stems from having to be better problem-solvers?
We will briefly explore this debate by looking at the experiences of this month’s interviewee, Nadia-Anne Ricketts. In her late 20s she studied weaving at The Central St. Martins School of Art and Design, where she was diagnosed with dyslexia. Over the last ten years, she has created a label that makes visual patterns from music. It all started when she was on the dance floor at a Carl Cox event in Ibiza. The DJ’s laser light show accompanying his music oddly reminded her of weaving looms, which was the moment her concept — BeatWoven — was born.
Nadia has quite an impressive CV. After high school she went to stage school where she learned about music, theatre and different types of dance. She auditioned for a job at an American circus after graduating and was offered a job. The circus took her to Central and South America, where she spent time in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and six months in Venezuela. After two years Nadia decided it was time to return home, on the search for a new challenge.
Back in London, Nadia did some commercial freelance work, making videos, working at trade shows and dance clubs. She then went on to working on a cruise ship, doing shows and dancing on board. The best time of her life, however, was yet to come — dancing in Ibiza performing in clubs like Space and Privilege. Asked why this was her favourite, Nadia says “Because I’m a clubber, I love house music”. Her knack for anything musical is very obvious throughout her career.
However, Nadia found that one of the most difficult things for her during her time as professional dancer was picking up choreographies. Because her short-term memory isn’t as effective, she struggled with learning them although she did learn them eventually. It just took her longer than everybody else. Nadia was always better at freestyling, and luckily her time in Ibiza was all about freestyle dancing. She stayed in Ibiza for six months before returning back home.
Prior to going to Ibiza, Nadia had already decided that she was going to hang up her dancing shoes and that this trip was going to be her last one. She had planned on doing something entirely different. “Because art was my best subject at school I decided to do something creative and then I fell into textiles and then I fell into weaving”. Nadia worked really hard to get accepted into The Central St. Martins School of Art and Design and “then it kind of just went from there”.
“[It] gave me a little bit more of an acceptance and understanding of why I worked the way that I did because before, I just thought there was something wrong with me”
The diagnosis
Nadia began a degree in weaving. Whilst threading looms during her weaving lessons — a textile production involving a lot of monotonous counting and being systematic; Nadia would always make mistakes but not be able to see them. Her weaving teacher noticed and suggested she get tested for dyslexia. She was 29 at this point. Nadia was diagnosed with a form of dyslexia which causes her difficulty in processing organised systems: “I can’t seem to organize them properly in my head and then also sometimes it might take me longer to register when somebody is talking to me because the filing of the information in my brain just takes that little bit longer”.
Luckily, the support Nadia received after the diagnosis was great. She was given a computer along with software that helped her with organisation and mapping her ideas; and she received a Dictaphone to record lessons so that she could listen back to them. The university staff were incredibly supportive, putting her at ease by emphasising that a lot of creative and successful people have dyslexia, which really helped Nadia. It “gave me a little bit more of an acceptance and understanding of why I worked the way that I did because before, I just thought there was something wrong with me and I didn’t quite know what it was. I just thought I was really scatty and really stupid and a bit silly with things”. Feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem are a common manifestation for individuals with dyslexia. And even after having a diagnosis, they often think that the reason for their difficulties is lack of ability and not in fact dyslexia.[1]
Unfortunately, her experiences with the education system weren’t always as positive as they were at St. Martins. Reflecting on her time as a pupil, Nadia tells us that she had to go to specific learning difficulties lessons because it took her a long time to be able to spell. She mentions a teacher who treated her like a naughty child rather than somebody who was having difficulty with sentence structure. These experiences naturally knocked Nadia’s self-confidence and she became introverted in those types of subjects.
The problem with our education system is the focus on books, words and lectures. It’s extremely rigid with little room for neurodiversity because measurement and performance comparison are constantly at the forefront. This approach is very limiting but has ultimately shaped how we see and interpret intelligence.[2] Luckily, however, with the tools and support she has received at university, Nadia now knows how to help herself. If “I am writing something, I know to go through it quite a few times, I know that there will be spelling mistakes, I know that there are certain things that I need to account for so that I can correct them”.
“[There were] loads of different kinds of lasers and they looked like threads on your loom […] and they were weaving in and out of each other to the beat of the music and I was like ‘Wow, they look like threads!’ […] and then I started seeing connections between those two worlds, […]”.
BeatWoven
In 2008 Nadia came up with her concept BeatWoven. There were loads of influences but the light bulb moment was when she was dancing at a Carl Cox event in Space in Ibiza. Accompanying his music, Carl Cox had a laser light show and Nadia remembers standing on the dance floor when a thought hit her. There were “loads of different kinds of lasers and they looked like threads on your loom and there were threads going one way and threads going the other way, and they were weaving in and out of each other to the beat of the music and I was like ‘Wow, they look like threads!’ and I sort of started thinking of music being pattern-like […] and then I started seeing connections between those two worlds, so the mathematics of music and the mathematics of weaving”.
Nadia started researching the theory and science behind music, trying to understand the mathematics of it. She was already learning about the mathematics of weaving through her course and was trying to see how they intertwined. But in the end she found that a better way to get music into visual patterns was through technology. She collaborated with a coder to create a software programme that turned music into visual patterns that she could then use for weaving. The software helps create patterns and images from recordings, Nadia chooses colours, textures, assigns structures and then she gets the piece ready to be sent to the loom.
Getting the business properly started took a few more years, though. When Nadia left university, the recession was in full swing so she had to get a full time job. While she was working in fashion, Nadia was doing exhibitions at places like the V&A and the Saint Martins Innovation Centre to make her concept known. People were contacting her and asking her to do presentations about her work. And this was when she realised that she was on to something with huge potential.
In 2012, Nadia was made redundant from her fashion job. She used this opportunity to apply for an award at the Cockpit Arts, a designer maker incubator, which supplied six weavers with business support and subsidised studio space to help them start up with their creative ideas. With money she had won from applying for more funding and grants, she put a website together. Over five years of steadily applying and winning different kinds of funding, Nadia slowly built up her business.
The Call to Prayer
In order to create her pieces for BeatWoven, Nadia was sampling different recordings, but not necessarily only music pieces. She discovered that the Arabic market is a really good market for her because Islamic art has a lot of geometric tessellated patterns. One of the most interesting art pieces she has developed so far is a pattern from Islamic prayer, specifically ‘The Call to Prayer’.
But in terms of music, her favourite piece was created from David Bowie’s song ‘Let’s Dance’, which she did in collaboration with the David Bowie Estate. It was exhibited in the Harrod’s window for their Art Partners Project and was a commemoration of the great artist. Nadia also did a commission for Warner Music on the theme Sound and Vision. In the late 70s, David Bowie wrote a song called ‘Sound and Vision’, in which he sings about seeing music.
These two projects about David Bowie are her proudest moments because Nadia loves what he represents as an artist and in the 70s he was already talking about what she is working on now, the concept of music being visible. He was very much ahead of his time, which is why Nadia thinks he would have completely understood her concept.
“Just to go for it because there is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of the most creative people in the world are dyslexic and a lot of entrepreneurs are dyslexic […]”
Dyslexia and creativity
But what led Nadia to come up with her concept in the first place? Was it just being at the right place at the right time when she saw the laser light show and thought of threads and looms? Or does being dyslexic mean she by default is more creative? There are studies that have found a link between dyslexia and creativity.[3] [4] One such study by Cancer, Manzoli and Antonietti (2016) has shown that junior high school students who were diagnosed with dyslexia performed significantly better in a creativity test than their non-dyslexic counterparts. They concluded that despite the often negatively perceived peculiarities of dyslexia, it does involve very useful and productive traits. 4
Interestingly, twenty years ago the Central St. Martins School of Art and Design funded research into the link between creativity and dyslexia because they noticed high levels of dyslexia among their students.2 Dr. Beverly Steffert found that three quarters of that year’s 360 foundation students had some form of dyslexia. The study author at the time said that there seems to be a trade-off between being able to see the world vividly and three-dimensionally and processing written words through reading or writing. Dyslexics seem to lack efficiency in the left hemisphere, which is responsible for language ability.
Studies with dyslexics show that their right hemisphere can learn to compensate for certain phonological impairments. There is research on neuroplasticity, which shows how well the human brain can adapt to behavioural interventions resulting in improved reading ability.[5] While there appears to be right hemisphere involvement in the early stages of learning to read for both typically and atypically developing readers, as reading becomes a more automatic task, the right hemisphere becomes less and less active. For individuals with dyslexia, however, the right hemisphere remains involved during reading tasks. [6]
But returning to Nadia and her concept BeatWoven, what is her take away message to us? “We are really in an exciting time of a digital age where we are able to use different worlds together to create new and exciting experiences and with BeatWoven, it makes you feel closer to music. It helps you live your music in a visual way. And capture music, like musical moments”. But in terms of running a business, Nadia tells us that it is really hard work because you need to do absolutely everything yourself. The most enjoyable part for her, on the other hand, is working with amazing musicians on amazing projects. She admits: “What surprised me is actually how big this concept actually is, in terms of where it can actually go”
Because of her experiences, Nadia encourages anyone who might suspect they might have dyslexia to get tested. “Just to go for it because there is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of the most creative people in the world are dyslexic and a lot of entrepreneurs are dyslexic so I would look at the positives of being tested and looking at being supplied with tools and ways of coping so that they can apply it to their lives”. The way Nadia looks at it is that perhaps being dyslexic means that you have an extra strong right hemisphere, which makes you more creative. This view is, in fact supported by Thomas West, author of In the Mind’s Eye, who says that dyslexics have increased efficiency in the right hemisphere, which is responsible for spatial ability. 2
“I would like it to be an international woven art label that […] stems of luxury products”.
What’s next?
“Obviously I really want to experiment with Arabic music for the Arabic market. I think that would be really really interesting because I think, from what I can gather, they’d really like it”. From a more Western perspective, Nadia would love to work with people like Coldplay or do something with Beyoncé where she works with a fashion designer and then have it made into something Beyoncé could wear on stage. Making a suit for Elton John with one of the Saville Road tailors would be another great opportunity because, as Nadia says about Elton, “He likes his wacky patterns, doesn’t he”? Because Will.I.Am is so very into technology and has his own fashion label, he would be another great artist she would like to work with.
And looking a bit further into the future: It has been ten years since Nadia has had her idea and we asked her where she would like to see herself in another ten years time? “I would like it to be an international woven art label that, sort of, stems of luxury products”.
There definitely seems to be a link between creativity and dyslexia. Looking at the long list of famous artists and entrepreneurs with dyslexia, including Pablo Picasso, Steven Spielberg, Richard Branson, etc., who, in their line of work have been and continue to be exceptionally successful and innovative, being dyslexic mustn’t be seen as a negative diagnosis. And while there still is a way to go, especially considering the rigid educational system, there are a lot of success stories, which will more and more shape society’s perceptions and make us more open to neurodiversity.
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[1] Pollak, D. (2007). Access to Higher Education for the mature dyslexic student: a question of identity and a new perspective. In Kiziewicz, M. & Biggs, I. (eds). CASCADE — Creativity across science, art, dyslexia, education. University of Bath. ISBN 0 86197 137 X. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/2806330.pdf#page=99
[2] Appleyard, D. (1997, February 27). Education: The Art of being dyslexic. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/education-the-art-of-being-dyslexic-1280776.html
[3] Cockcroft, K. & Hartgill, M. (2004). Focusing on the abilities in learning disabilities: dyslexia and creativity. Education as change, 8, p. 61 – 79. Retrieved from https://journals.co.za/content/edchange/8/1/EJC31680
[4] Cancer, A., Manzoli, S., & Antonetti, A. (2016). The alleged link between creativity and dyslexia: Identifying the specific process in which dyslexic students excel. Cogent Psychology, 3, 1190309. Retrieved from https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/23311908.2016.1190309.pdf
[5] Kopko, K. Dyslexia and the brain: research shows that reading ability can be improved. Retrieved from: http://www.human.cornell.edu/hd/outreach-extension/upload/temple.pdf
[6] Waldie, K. E., Haigh, C. E., Badzakova-Trajkov, G., Buckley, J. & Kirk, I.J. (2013). Reading the wrong way with the right hemisphere. Brain Science, 3 (3), 1060–1075. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4061874/
