Artists/Designers with Aphantasia

September 30, 20241 min readByCaroline S

I’m a graphic designer/artist/animator. When I start a project, I can tell myself that it’ll be in XYZ style because I’ve seen it somewhere and that’s what comes up in my thoughts. I can’t actually SEE it. I KNOW it though. So where is that coming from? I must have visually referenced it at some point, as I know that’s what I want to recreate. I can’t shut my eyes and see it. It’s just hovering around somewhere as what, exactly?? I can’t see it but I ‘see’ it enough to recognise it’s the look I’m after. Make it make sense! Is it a recall problem?

Artists/Designers with Aphantasia

September 30, 20241 min readByCaroline S

Creativity

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Sandra Talbot•recently•edited

I’m an artist (sculpture, drawing, painting, fabric, photography; everything but performance art) but also a scientist (genetics/genomics/botany/wildlife biologist). I am profoundly aphantasic but I can draw and paint from my imagination as well as from life. When I draw, or sculpt, or do any art, my hands know what to do; it’s as if I’m channeling but I never have a mental imagery of what I’m trying to draw or sculpt. I draw from conceptual understanding. When I was getting my Master’s degree, my thesis work was with barn owls, and I handled many owls for several years. I can now draw them with no difficulty, even though it’s been around 35 years since I last handled an owl, but I can’t see them in my mind. My hands see them.

Daniel Newsome•recently•edited

I draw when I read... in the margins. I think I'm trying to visualize, but because I can't visualize in my mind, I draw.

Linda Steward•recently•edited

I am also an artist with aphantasia, and Robert Avila, like you, I find drawing in 2 dimensions very difficult but I took to clay sculpting like I was born to it. i believe it has something to do with drawing being in two-D, in the same way that "pictures in the mind" are , or visualizationis, where as sculpting is more of a whole concept, multidimensional, yes, visceral thing , as you said.

Cara Kearns•recently•edited

I’m also an artist with aphantasia. From what I understand, people who can’t visualize somehow have the ability to do tasks that are generally thought of as needing visualization. So we can describe what something looks like, we just can’t see it in our heads. Obviously these tasks don’t truly require visualization, just a desire to do them, and persistence. We’ve had aphantasia our whole lives and never knew it. But that means without realizing it, we’ve created ways for our brains to do what they do without visualizing and that’s amazing!!! Now that I know about aphantasia , I do wonder how I’m able to do what I do, and I think about it every day. But I also like to take a minute every so often and just pat myself on the back because I’m a visual artist who can’t visualize and that is truly just awesome!

Robert Avila•recently•edited

I come from a family successful artists and designers. I was the black sheep being verbal and incapable of drawing. But art having been important in my home growing up I have also spent much time in art museums, both at home and when I travel. Here is what is curious. In my 60s my wife got me to sign up for a sculpture class at a prestigious art academy that happened to be close to where we were living at the time. I had never sculpted a human figure in my life, but my very first standing nude was remarkably good. Over the next few years until we moved I was a regular student in the sculpture class. The experience was always very visceral, the feel of the clay and the look of the arm or the leg or the back but never a scene of the figure as a whole nor and no understanding of where or why my sculpture as a whole did not reflect the model standing before me The last pieces that I did were not really improved over the first. And I still can't draw.

Cara Kearns•recently•edited

I can’t draw either! My primary media are clay and yarn.

Elise Matsubara•recently•edited

I'm also an artist and love what you said! Do you have any tips for drawing things without a reference?

Cara Kearns•recently•edited

Thank you! I’m not very good at drawing, and I definitely can’t draw anything without a reference. I work in clay and in fiber (yarn). When I’m planning a piece, I write information about composition etc first, then try to find relevant photos to piece together - sometimes even physically into a collage - so I can sketch from that. I’m sorry, I doubt that helps much.

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Sandra Talbot•recently•edited

Daniel Newsome•recently•edited

I draw when I read... in the margins. I think I'm trying to visualize, but because I can't visualize in my mind, I draw.

Linda Steward•recently•edited

Cara Kearns•recently•edited

Robert Avila•recently•edited

Cara Kearns•recently•edited

I can’t draw either! My primary media are clay and yarn.

Elise Matsubara•recently•edited

I'm also an artist and love what you said! Do you have any tips for drawing things without a reference?

Cara Kearns•recently•edited