Anne Brisson – Art Thinking & Creativity

Anne Brisson is a creativity educator, professional artist, and researcher based in Montreal, Canada. She brings more than 25 years of experience in business, design, and adult education. Anne holds an MS in the Science of Creativity from the Center for Applied Imagination, a Bachelor's in Adult Education, and a Bachelor's in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design. She is now a PhD candidate at Concordia University, where she researches how drawing and mark-making develop affective creativity skills in adult learners. In this episode of the Creative Flow podcast, Anne explains how art thinking differs from design thinking. Design thinking improves solutions to a known problem, while art thinking asks whether we are solving the right problem. She describes leading early patient partnerships in Canada's pharmaceutical industry. When an HIV patient group first threatened to sue, she chose to listen with empathy. Ten months later, the group honored her with an award on World AIDS Day. Anne links that success to three affective creative skills: openness to novelty, tolerance for complexity, and tolerance for ambiguity. She argues that these skills drive our cognitive thinking, and that a daily drawing practice, with nothing more than a pen and paper, builds the courage to turn ideas into action.To see the artwork described in this podcast, visit her Instagram account at @parlamainestudio. This conversation shows how the arts strengthen the courage to create. Anne offers a fresh voice to the Science of Creativity. She reminds us that bold ideas matter only when we find the courage to act on them, at any age. If you have studied at the Center for Applied Imagination, attended CPSI, or practice deliberate creativity, this episode will challenge how you approach the problems you choose to solve. Follow Creative Flow and listen now.