The talented Maureen Hansen and I were delighted to be part of the Art Expo at the Brisbane Mental Health Expo on Friday. We met so many terrific people who spoke openly about their struggles with mental health and their strategies to maintain good mental health.

It was heartwarming to see that people responded well to making patterns and could feel more peaceful as they were participating. A few were very surprised to find they were more creative that they thought they were.

How it Works:

It’s Self-Soothing. Repetitive creative work, in and of itself, can be calming and self-soothing. This is particularly true if you accept this process as one with no expected outcome other than the enjoyment of putting the pen to paper and staying open to whatever emerges.

It Teaches How to Own Mistakes. Using a pen on paper requires that you risk making mistakes; in fact, most patterns some misplaced lines which cannot be erased. Patterning teaches you how to incorporate what seem like “mistakes” into the overall pattern of the design. It’s a great metaphor for everyday life—nothing is ever perfect, but how you adjust to mistakes is what really matters.

It Induces Flow State. This making of patterns often leads in to a state of flow, which Csíkszentmihályi describes as “an intrinsically rewarding or optimal state that results from intense engagement with daily activities”. It’s a simple way to enjoy the creative process.

Last week, child number three and I spent time watching Vi Hart videos on the Khan Academy website. The films lure you in with the hypnotic into “so you’re math class and your teacher is droning on about –insert math principle- and you’re bored so you start doodling”. She then fills her notepad with doodles that cunningly illustrate the math principle that the fictitious teacher was unable to engage you in. As a consequence we have been trying to make hexaflexagons, drawing snakes that slither under and over their own bodies and replicating Sierpinski’s Triangles. The fast pace of Vi’s speech, the many coloured sharpies and the casual reference to mathematicians as though they are friends has a hypnotic effect, Vi is an effectively eccentric tutor. Number three isbusily filling her notebook with colours and shapes which are the basic tenets of patterns.

I find that drawing patterns has a meditative effect. I start with a blank piece of paper, then I invent a rules about colour, line or shape and proceed to fill the page using the rule. I then assess the result and puzzle over the next idea. I realise that I use a pattern to make a pattern.

This making of patterns often leads me in to a state of flow, which Csíkszentmihályi describes as “an intrinsically rewarding or optimal state that results from intense engagement with daily activities". Conversely, I often start to make patterns to disengage from the intense engagement of the demands of my progeny. I also find that getting into the flow can solve problems seemingly unrelated to the task at hand. Nice huh?!

The Sierpinski Triangle is a fractal construction: the image is self-similar and therefore similar at any point, by magnification or reduction, regardless of scale.