The Storm of Creativity
By Kyna Leski
The Storm of Creativity is “[a] definitive guide to swimming through creative chaos”, describing a process of moving from ambiguity to clarity in bringing creative work to life.
In this book, Leski “develops critical mechanisms that braid the arts, sciences, and humanities to bring the various disciplines into conversation as part of the process of discovering.”
The book’s contents include: “Noumena and Phenomena in Creativity”; sections on “Unlearning”, “Gathering and Tracking”, “Connecting”, “Pausing”, “Continuing” and more — ten concise chapters in total. Her descriptions of the universal creative process as a storm, dynamic and vital, serve as metaphoric through-line; this is also nicely illustrated in each chapter.
I like her focus on unlearning, as a process of ridding ourselves of preconceptions. She also has a nice turn of phrase re: gathering evidence, which she describes as an ongoing process by which “we perceive and conceive”, alternately, or perhaps in tandem.
In John Maeda’s foreword, he remarks that Leski “speaks many dialects of knowledge” — I love this idea! — and describes how “each chapter provides a different perspective on the storm that lies at the center of her pedagogy for the creative mind…”
My impression: a look at creativity that is simple, elegant, penetrating, enlightening, evocative, and thoughtful.