What about caffeine and creativity? While beer might fuel live actions like guitar jamming or lunchtime meetings, tea is what I want when I want to relax, think, and do. Looking back through many old sketchbooks I found that many, if not most of my best drawings and sketches were inspired and fueled by coffee. There is no doubt a link between graphic arts and caffeine.
According to the National Coffee something something, coffee drinkins is up! Which means; we should be seeing more great coffee house art! Well maybe not, but I can attest to the fact that I enjoy a jolt of the old java before I start being creative. Today I am horking down some lovely Earl Grey while writing this article.
My love affair/addiction with caffeine began at an early age. I was visiting a friend in Phoenix AZ. His parents were avid members of Alcoholics Anonymous. What do Ex Alcoholics do at meetings? Drink tons of coffee, and back in the 80’s, smoke copious amounts of cigarettes. Maybe they still smoke a lot, I haven’t had the occasion to go to a meeting, so I can’t be sure about this. We consumed styrofoam cup after styrofoam cup of percolator coffee with cream and sugar. I remember being jacked up beyond all good sense. I didn’t drink much again until High School. The cafeteria put out a huge urn, not quite a samovar but close enough, of passable coffee that we students and teachers alike suckled from. I’m not sure if I would be the same person I am today without the companionable goodwill coffee lent me and my fledgling artistic maundering. My good friend Ross and I made a series of paintings whilst super duper hopped up on coffee, using acrylic paints applied with palette knives, we attempted the chronicles of Jeff’s parka. I have never been as high on coffee as I was that day. I regret the loss of that set of paintings. I’m not sure if they were any good or not, but I still regret losing that piece of my history.
Adenosine, some chemical in your noggin, an alkaloid, hangs up in the brain the longer you are awake, and coffee blocks this chemical from doing it’s thing on your sleepy receptacles. It’s not that you aren’t sleepy or tired, it’s the fact that caffeine has glommed on instead and tricked you into feeling awake. Who knew that Adenosine was such a drag anyway. But why do I feel more like doing creative things when high on caffeine? I asked an expert and this is he/she/it told me as I started typing:
Yikes, not what I wanted! Let me try again: Why does coffee make me creative?
I got a plethora of pages involving just this topic. In the course of trying to plow through the myriad of hits on the page I came across this little gem, claiming the noise of the coffee shop may have something to do with letting the mind wander. Well , I don’t know about that, I often work at home in a totally silent environment. There is probably some kind of anecdotal evidence here.
an·ec·do·talˌanəkˈdōdl/adjective
I think we just love the ritual of drinking and doing. I see I am one among thousand choosing to write about this subject. I wonder if I ask my local expert about art with coffee rings on it what I will get. I am not disapointed. Check out the art of Carter Asmann. He draws cars and motorcycles using the ring of coffee as the wheels.
I tried searching for drawings made while high on coffee and got too much junk about people doing art wile high on LSD or mushrooms. Not quite what I wanted. I did find lots of people who use coffee as a paint. check out R2D2.
This is artist’s stuff is great. Maria A. Aristidou.
Apparently painting with tea bags is a thing. I found fewer images painted with tea. There were a lot by people using Wine. So maybe my theory about booze being less creative was wrong. Apparently a study was done asking people to do creative things and then drink some. Two beers in the greatest creativity was seen in tasks that don’t require memory skills. Apparently, forgetting your cares makes you more creative. Who would have thunk?
In 2012, researchers from the University of Illinois showed how creative people could be when happily drunk.Their study, “Uncorking the Muse: Alcohol Intoxication Facilitates Creative Problem Solving,” looked at the ability of 40 men, whose blood alcohol content was 0.075 (just under the legal limit), to solve a creative problem-solving task. Called the Remote Associates Test (RAT), participants were given three words, such as “peach,” “arm,” and “tar,” and asked to come up with another word that could go with each to form a two-word phrase — in this case, the word was “pit.” The test works because the most obvious responses are usually incorrect, forcing participants to think creatively. Indeed, all of the intoxicated participants came up with correct answers, and they were more “insightful,” too. Excerpt courtesy of Medical Daily.
You can even go and paint while drinking. Count me in.
I have previously made a video about coffee. it is short and sweet. Check it out if you have time.
Yes
Great article. I agree, coffee is great for creativity, though I prefer inserting my finger into a light socket. I find 220 while standing in a washtub filled with tapioca gives just the right jolt, while helping to keep my hair from falling into my face, obscuring my vision from my work.
I must say that there is something to Caffein and Creativity, particularly when sitting still. All that energy must be articulated. I find though that I must get the ratio just right or I become a psychologically chaotic. For me, long and steady is better than a spike. One cup of Earl Grey (steeped for no more than 30 seconds) with extra milk and a dash of sugar consumed over half an hour, repeated on the hour, works best.