Deep down, many people must wish that they were able to see as observantly, think as penetratingly, and respond as effectively as Sherlock Holmes.
Why else would so much hoopla be made of Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle’s fictional character for well over a century? Doyle created Holmes in 1887.
Happily, a path to this surprisingly achievable goal will be unveiled at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Hall of Philosophy.
During the Chautauqua Women’s Club’s Contemporary Issues Forum, Amy E. Herman will lead a “highly participatory” discussion about “The Art of Perception: Seeing What Matters.”
Herman — founder and president of The Art of Perception, Inc. — will demonstrate “the value of visual literacy, enhanced perception, and precise communication in today’s complex, diverse, and technologically driven workplaces.”
While 30% of Herman’s time is devoted to giving eye-opening keynote speeches at conferences around the world, the other 70% involves teaching professional development training seminars.
“I’m channeling the power of art,” she said. “I thrive on it. It’s intellectually stimulating because I never give the same talk twice. I’ll give examples of how (art) is used in different industries.”
Herman convenes her seminars in museums displaying original works of art and in workplaces alike. If on-site, she uses high-quality digital reproductions of paintings, sculpture and photographs as her training tools.
Wherever her seminars occur, Herman fosters discourse about and analysis of profession-specific issues. Her aim is to “uncover and address biases, assumptions and other ethical challenges in today’s diverse work environments.”
One might surmise that the U.S. Army Asymmetrical Warfare Group, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Judicial Center, Secret Service, U.S. State Department, the Navy SEALs, Interpol and Scotland Yard either could not or would not find the time for their personnel to observe, analyze and discuss artworks and images. Au contraire.
In “mission-critical” professions, said Herman, “failure isn’t an option. They have to make life-saving decisions. … Art history lays the foundation for the refined eye.”
Herman’s list of clients also includes first responders, prison wardens, medical and healthcare associations and centers, police departments, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, financial services and Fortune 500 companies.
Beyond the workplace, visual intelligence also serves an invaluable purpose.
Consider, for instance, the life-changing experience that Herman’s agent shared with her before the pandemic.
While riding on a New York City subway train, he noticed that a woman nearby had begun to cough. As her coughing slowly intensified, she began searching through her bag, in vain.
At the next stop, Herman’s agent exited the train, located the conductor, and told him that a woman was having an asthma attack and needed an inhaler, that the train should be shut down, and that EMS workers were needed.
“He got the number of the (subway) car,” Herman said. “He told the conductor: ‘Asthma inhaler. EMS. Now,’ versus ‘There’s a lady sick in the subway.’ That changed his life and saved hers.”
Herman continued: “So I re-thought (the) conveyance of information. I want people to be more effective at work and have more meaningful engagement in their lives.”
After his life-changing experience, Herman’s agent told her that he wanted to choose the “right title” for her first book because visual acuity is so important — in a bookstore, people should notice it and want to pick it up.
Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life, published by HarperCollins in 2016, has since become a bestseller.
In 2018, Herman gave a TED Talk on “A Lesson on Looking,” and her second HarperCollins book, Fixed. How to Perfect the Fine Art of Problem-Solving, came out in December 2021.
In addition, she is the primary author of a Simon & Schuster book for young readers that seasoned readers also find enlightening – smART: Use Your Eyes to Boost Your Brain.
At Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, Herman earned her bachelor’s degree in art history. Then she followed the professional path that she said many art history majors “who have no idea what to do” take: law school.
She entered George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. Six weeks into her first term, she knew she “didn’t like it,” but her parents persuaded her to stick it out, and she was able to intern at art museums and law firms before completing her Juris Doctor degree.
“I went back to New Jersey where I’m from, and spent five years practicing law in Princeton,” Herman said. “I volunteered on weekends at the Princeton University Art Museum.”
It was there that she learned of an opening at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
“I was thrilled,” Herman said. “That lasted 18 months, and then I was hired away by the director of The Frick museum, (the late) Charles Rice Camp, because he … wanted a lawyer as his assistant.”
Three months later, Camp announced his retirement, and Herman said she began learning everything she could about running a museum. She fell in love with working with children and wanted to be the head of education.
That’s when she was taken aside and told that in order to hold such a position, she had to have an advanced degree.
“I went to Hunter College (in New York City) at night for a Masters in Art History,” Herman said.
After earning her master’s degree, she pursued her Ph.D. in art history at Hunter’s Graduate Center, advancing to the All-But-Dissertation (aka “ABD”) stage before giving it up when she had a son.
“I tell people that I’m a recovering attorney,” Herman said.
When someone told her to look into something at Yale University’s School of Medicine, she said she called a friend there, and learned that there was a program involving the fine arts — and it had a job opening. Asked to interview for the position, she traveled to New Haven, Connecticut.
Yale Professor of Dermatology Irwin M. Braverman, and the Yale Center for British Art Curator of Education Linda K. Friedlaender had founded Yale’s interdisciplinary Enhancing Observational Skills Program in 1997.
Herman said that on the train ride home from New Haven, she thought, “Why not in New York City, too?” After all, Cornell University Medical School was The Frick Collection’s neighbor in Manhattan. So she made Yale an offer to form a partnership in 2001.
“With Yale’s gracious permission, I started (a similar program) at The Frick,” she continued.
Herman’s connection with Yale is noted in an article in the March-April 2006 edition of Medicine@Yale titled “Yale innovation in the art of observation extends its reach.”
“With Friedlaender’s advice, Amy Herman, J.D., M.A., head of education at the Frick Collection in New York, is offering a variation on the (Enhancing Observational Skills) program, using her museum’s portraits to teach observation skills to about 200 medical students a year drawn from Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine.”
By 2004, Herman said she was working with seven different medical schools, including Long Island Jewish Hospital. Their students came to the Frick.
“I thought the medical students had the most myopia I’d ever seen,” she said. Then one Saturday night, a friend asked her why she wasn’t providing a program for the cops.
“On Monday, I called the New York City Police Department,” Herman said. After being transferred seven times, she was connected to deputy commissioner Jim Fife, who “knew exactly what I was saying.”
Fife asked her why they were talking on the phone instead of at the museum. When he came to the Frick, he brought with him seven homicide investigators, all armed.
The 2006 Medicine@Yale article continues: “Two years ago, Herman invited members of the New York City Police Department to take similar training, and 500 city cops attended sessions at the Frick last year. The resulting publicity, including a front page story in The Wall Street Journal, brought an invitation to Herman to deliver a presentation on the method at Scotland Yard.”
Herman said she “started a branch at the Frick for law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the military.”
Because her program “was bigger than (her) canvas” at the museum, she said she left the Frick in 2007 and took a position in education and advertising at public television station WNET Channel 13.
“In 2011, my mother died of breast cancer in six weeks,” Herman said. “I thought, ‘life is too short.’ So I left WNET to start my own company.”
The Art of Perception, Inc. took off and soon became a global company.
It’s “for FBI agents, Special Ops, Navy SEALs, hospitals, the hospitality sector, and on and on and on,” she said. “I am sector agnostic. … I use the same methodology (for each), but I tailor it to the situation and field. I rethink the skills of critical inquiry using works of art. … I’ve never had a dull day.”
Because “Navy SEALs need to get it right, I teach the power of precision,” Herman added. “I show them what they didn’t see.”
She said that her visual intelligence work is so “intellectually challenging” that someone once said to her, “The less you look, the dumber you get.”
In 2012, Herman was on an airplane. She was tired, looking forward to putting on her headphones, and hopefully getting some relief from a headache. In the seat next to her was a “lovely woman,” so she spoke to her. At the end of the flight, she asked for the woman’s card.
The woman replied that “she did not give her card to anyone,” but that she would take Herman’s card because she was a literary agent, and she wanted Herman to write a book about her visual intelligence work.
“Now we’re in conversations with Netflix,” Herman said. “Before you put your headphones on, who’s around you? Look. (There’s) power (in) situational awareness.”
When she was invited to be the commencement speaker at her alma mater, Lafayette University, Herman said that she asked that there not be a podium, so that she could stand on the floor with the students, face-to-face.
“What I’m going to talk about (on Saturday) is exactly what I do with the FBI and military,” Herman said. “Prepare to have your eyes opened when you didn’t know they were closed.”
