FLOWERING WITH FTD

How language stunts creativity: As the brain dies, new artistry is born (Brad Evenson, 7/05/03, National Post)

Suddenly, in 1997, amid a growing inability to speak or read, Ms. Chang produced some of her wildest and most original paintings. The constraints of her formal
training slipped away. She splashed large swatches of red, turquoise and purple acrylics on paper.

She painted male nudes with distinctly sexual overtones. One piece, of two sumo wrestlers locked in struggle, showed an emotional side, as though in existential conflict for her mind.

In a way, they were.

In 2000, Ms. Chang's family brought her to see Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California in San Francisco. Dr. Miller put her through a series of
tests, including an MRI scan, and diagnosed her with frontotemporal dementia, or FTD.

In plain terms, the brain cells between her left eye and ear were dying, taking away her powers of language, social graces and reasoning. As many as 400,000 North
Americans suffer varying degrees of FTD. In its most advanced form, dementia strips away the brain's ability to function. There is no cure.

Ms. Chang's case, described last month in Neurology magazine, raises a series of questions: Where in the brain does artistic creativity reside? Can the "damaged" mind give rise to true art?

Creativity as described here seems to mean not much more than seeing the world differently from normal people or even differently than it exists. That may be interesting, but it's not necessarily Art, while it is, at least in these cases, necessarily an expression of disease. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 5, 2003 10:14 AM