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Dear Lawrence, It looks like you have chosen an interesting topic that may well turn out to be more complex than it at first appeared. Terry Love raised a problem of Flow Theory and Learning as being somewhat contradictory. It depends whether the learning is viewed as conceptual or in another form. In my doctoral study I looked at ‘Painterly Methodology: painting and digital inquiry in adult learning’, University of New England, (2007) which also tried to build the relationship between art and practices in another field. I tried to get at the practice of painting and I also used Cziks’ as a reference. Some interesting work is being done by Allan Snyder (2006) at the University of Sydney, Centre for the Mind http://www.centreforthemind.com/ It has been possible to demonstrate improvements in drawing and other savant capacities by distracting or shutting down the frontal lobe with electromagnetic fields, thus emulating the experience of brain damage victims who suddenly gain remarkable skills as a result. The practice of a painter, I studied, included using loud music and a number of other activities to get into a preferred painting state. In this sense, learning to paint or work as a painter involved something very different from working with the usual conceptual frameworks. Historically, many other noted painters have attested to anti-conceptual methods for painting in their letters, writings and recordings. New work coming from psych and consciousness studies, the paradoxes created about what it is to learn and to “be”, should cause us to radically review how research into such topics can be structured. The issue for you at the moment seems to be to tease out whether you are interested in the practice issues of art and consciousness influencing design/ design education or the theoretical understanding of art (understood as movements) influencing design, or both?? Hope this is of help. Paul Reader.