The Somatic Dimensions of Artistic Creativity

Artists who know how to be attentive to their bodies can teach us a lot about creativity and creative living. Their trained attention to somatic cues enables them to use the body as a source of deep, not yet cognitively formulated intelligence, and as a sophisticated vessel through which this intelligence (their creativity) flows as it is being formulated into personalized creative expressions. These creative journeys towards formulation are always unfolding, surprising even the artists themselves, who capture the complete elegance and coherent nature of their creations only in retrospect. This qualitative research explores how information flowing up from the body to the mind via bottom-up attentive processes can guide creative endeavors. Analyzing depth interviews of ten Israeli artists who are able to listen to their somatic sensations and to report on them in detail, this study contributes new insights to four innovative knowledge fields: Somatic Psychology, Creativity Research, Grounded Cognition, and Flow.