Heartsong Studio

Whenever switching from rational drawing to more intuitive painting, I’ve often wondered if left-handers are more creative.

This summer I’ve found a new way to appreciate my left hand.  I DO NOT advise you to copy my example.

I fractured my right wrist.  A steel plate screwed into the bones to keep them straight finds me in constant pain trying to get my right hand to move as it did while tapering off a whack of medication.  Mine was a regretted accident, but the unique skills of the left hand were a wonderful surprise.

The left hand is the poetic hand.

The intuitive and rational parts of lefties’ brains have a closer connection.  Their brains are structured differently in a way that widens their range of abilities, and the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the language centres of the brain, according to Chris McManus of University College London in his book “Right-Hand, Left-Hand”.

Left means gauche, weak, careless, awkward, maladroit, insincere, and so on… Most languages are loaded with anti-left-handed prejudice. Yet, loads of famous geniuses were lefties: Bach, da Vinci, Cole Porter, Michelangelo.

The proportion of left-handers is rising and left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high achievers.

There are over 1000 pieces of piano music written for just the left hand.  Leon Fleisher is a pianist who lost the use of most of his right hand through focal distonia.  His career is a testament to the life-affirming power of art.

If he had to lose use of one hand again, even though he’s right-handed, he says he’d choose to keep his left hand as it has so many advantages.  For one, the thumb of your left hand is nearer the keys which play the melody.   But there’s more.

Where’s the love in my pain ?

If you are right-handed like me, you move the brush or comb with your right hand, but do the delicate arranging of your hair with your left hand. The left hand does the poetic stuff.

Using your dominant hand is not the same only more awkward than your other hand. Each hand has its own personality and specialties.

For a few weeks, I had the use of my left hand only, and what a patient, resourceful, tender hand it is, gently comforting and encouraging my painful dominant right.

Are you on good terms with your left hand ?

Your left hand does things its own way. Keep your right hand from telling your left what to do. Be willing to be surprised.  Suddenly even your left-hand writing gets a lot more legible. Subtle changes appear which you didn’t intend, but are new and attractive.

A real life example

My friend Catherine was born left-handed. She was made to use her right hand in school, though she managed to function pretty well. Catherine always had trouble with perspective drawing with her right hand which tended to look “primitive”.

It was in one of my classes that Catherine realized she was using her left hand sometimes for more free form drawings, but her right hand for precise work, as she had been forced to do.

Here is one of her interesting, earlier works, made with her right hand.

Suddenly she decided to paint entirely with her left hand. The result was so different from anything she had done before. She kept painting from her heart ever since. This is one of her natural, left-handed works — quite a different style. With her left hand, her work is effortlessly more realistic, like Catherine’s personality.

How did this switch come about?

The crucial change came about within Catherine, by gradually gaining the self assurance to follow and trust her intuitive sense of rightness. She recognized the difference in feeling internally, though it may have flown in the face of earlier training.

Want to discover the creative personality of your left hand?

Go outside and look with nothing in mind, until a natural object wants you to pick it up.

Lull your right hand with music, meditation, the Remembrance, or whatever works, so it doesn’t think about how accurate your left hand is.

Use soft pastels or crayon on throwaway paper. Start with eyes closed.

Draw the form you feel when handling your chosen object, first with the right hand, then both hands together, then just the left hand. Make your marks over and over letting each hand improvise as it will. Once you’re into a flow, gently open your eyes as impartial observers only.

It’s important not to focus on pre-formed ideas in your right-handed mind. Sure everything may be awkward at first, but keep attentive to subtle differences.

See how soon you become creative and inventive, once you stop leading with your usual right hand, and let your left hand show its own personality.

On the other hand, can be found a helpmate.

By watching how your other side responds in its own way in a number of situations, you can build up a vocabulary of intuitive expressions. Notice what sort of subject is best done with intuition and which with your original taught way. Then you can consciously choose or mix.

By developing your ambidextrous skills, both right- and left-handedness as well as intuitive and learned skills, you will become less slanted to one approach, and more balanced in other ways.