As an atelierista, working with children Holly warren constantly sees the demonstration of the creative drive that humans possess. The desire and ability to draw out ancestral knowledge concerning phenomena. She is very proud of my student’s talents, insights, constant energy and inspiration. The spontaneous flow of curiosity that manifests itself in their artwork is an example of the joyous outpour of the creative instinct. Their imagination and minimalism in illustrating ideas and concepts leaves us in awe of human nature. Holly draws inspiration for her personal artwork from this experience.

Floating Neurons and Brain Trees, which are the first two pieces belonging to the project Meanders of the Mind, are works based on the insights gained over a period of 3 school years. They want to celebrate the creative drive Holly Warren is exposed to. She absorbs and interprets it.  By being in contact with these great young minds, she feels in touch with the primordial drive. Children have answers and questions to almost everything. Their vision is enveloped in our collective intelligence. It is passed down and should make its way up to higher levels of understanding and shared to be later passed on once again. Her mission is to enhance, amplify and celebrate the child as a 21^st century artist.

Bubbles of Thought, Step Inside and Cirques des Idées are installation that wants to draw attention on the classification of ideas. Once again, it draws inspiration from her atelierista experience. In the current project Cogito Ergo Sum, working with Year 1 students of five and six years of age, she investigates brain structure and thinking. One aspect that draws her enthusiastic attention is the ideation process in all its facets. Cirques des Idées wants to draw attention to the variety and depth of this process. Her discoveries in this subject has brought her to research thought and the generation of ideas in depth creating The Morphology of Ideas.

An idea as a mental image created through the process of contemplation, reasoning and inspiration could be expressed as a metaphor of a concept combination (Gabora, 2017). Thoughts can be the product of mental formulations that the brain makes. They come together creating assumptions and new pathways. Ideas as creative combinations of these thoughts arise and are illustrated in this artwork.

What form could ideas have? Here the artist has selected a few that are close to her research on the creative drive.

They are seen as metaphors that arise while creating a work of art. Seen under this light, ideas are playful elements that shape our lives as creative beings. Whether it is a composition, an artwork, an equation, a narrative or a discovery, the idea that arises during thinking can be outlined and turned into a visible mark. In these three art pieces, photographs, threads and hoops come together creating an ongoing dialogue between the artist’s vision and the public.

 Bubbles of Thought and Step Inside are the first two stages in the process of idea generation. Fleeting thoughts come and go, felt and forgotten looking for an allocated space. Brain activity is powerful and disorderly a combination of diffused and focused modes interact constantly.

Cirques des Idées dares to classify ideas according to three natural elements: earth, air and ether. These three elements can be representative of the diversity of ideas and of their possible pathways in creating works of art. Earth, where we tread our first steps, the ground that nourishes and shelters, air indispensable for life and the element of inspiration lastly ether the invisible realm of wisdom.

The artwork is composed of hoops representative of the brain where coloured threads are woven creating a lightweight of symbolic synaptic connections needed for the creation of ideas. Placed inside the threads metaphors of ideas as photographs printed on transparencies should draw the audience’s attention to possible interpretations, open to multiple interpretations. The photographs purposely vary in size and shape and are placed in the mesh of threads at different depths. The elements of light and air play an important role as mediators. They move the hanging version or make the standing version vibrate. The sound of air flowing through the threads creates an inspirational sound that should induce closer and attentive listening, not just physical. Light shining through the images creates different visions once again drawing attention to the artwork as a trampoline for imagination.

The outdoor display enhances the link of Cirques des Idées with the natural world where the three elements play a decisive part in creating the dynamic, fleeting, illusory and multi-faceted realm of thoughts. Imagination and the mind is asked to wander and wonder.

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