1. In Search of a Truly Creative Occupation
2. Fine Art in Museums: Tigers in Zoos
3. Invisible Artwork: If we ignore it maybe it will go away
4. Art is Communication, Getting Yelled At by Art Is as Much Fun as Getting Yelled At by People

“It is a certain kind of educated, intelligent and intellectually hungry person that seeks out and enjoys encountering things and people that challenge their own culture. To have any hope that the general public would embrace this practice is foolish.” – Jason Simanek

I am debating whether the population of people who embrace “a challenge to their own culture” is growing or shrinking in response to the internet age where everyone is networked together. On the one hand, people are connecting with people far different from themselves that they never would have encountered in the past. But people are also digging deeper into communities of like minded people. Is it better to be loosely connected to a physical community centered around ancestry and tradition or is it better to be tightly connected to an online community that passionately supports your obscure interests? There are pros and cons to both I suppose and a healthy person would benefit from both.

In general, I have more hope in the public than I think I have ever had in my life. One of the exciting things about the age of the internet is that the population of “intellectually hungry” people that you describe is exploding. While the walls of our homes may not reflect it, the population of artists has exploded thanks to the internet and technology.

Most people can afford a computer that makes it relatively easy to create something. Sure, the first thing they create with these machines is a video/photo/blog about their cat, but nevertheless, this has huge implications. It has changed the general public from a passive participant in our culture into an active member who is adding to and shaping the world. Now, rather than copying the rich “culture makers” sense of art, each person can define the meaning of their culture individually. And is it any wonder that the walls of most people’s homes isn’t where they choose to display their work? Now you can share your creations online with people who might actually appreciate what you are doing. The walls of the home seem pretty limiting by comparison.

So now we are shifting into a creative culture that encourages participation. We are all asking ourselves these questions: “Now that I have these tools, what should I create? Who can I share my creations with? Now that I have found a community of people who share my passions, what can I contribute? How can I improve the work that I am creating? How can I help others improve their skills?” In addition, people are forming opinions about things that they never would have thought about before.

“Only recently has the general public had the free time and money to attempt to emulate the rich by thoughtfully decorating their homes with the mass-produced copies of images that have already been defined as ‘good art’ by rich people in the past. Its as though they have a nostalgia for someone else’s past. They’ve replaced what was most likely their own relatively simple but rich folk art tradition with thoughtless, mass produced imagery.”

There is an article in Wired this month called “The Great Cognitive Surplus” that talks about how differently people are spending there time compared to a decade ago. Clay Shirky makes a great statement that, “When someone buys a TV, the number of consumers goes up by one, but the number of producers stays the same. When someone buys a computer or mobile phone, the number of consumers and producers both increase by one.” I think that the general public is shifting from a population that spends their free time into a population that uses their free time. (On a side note, the other voice in that Wired article is Daniel Pink who has a great video on YouTube talking about “the surprising truth about what motivates us.”

Five years ago it was almost impossible to connect with people who would stop and notice my work. The best I could do was offend a few people in the middle of a small town in the middle of Nebraska. Today I can share pinhole photos with hundreds of like-minded enthusiasts who appreciate what I do without giving me strange looks. These people are invested in the same kind of work and willing to contribute to my improvement.

Admittedly, I am blurring the lines between traditional artists (Warhol, Pollock, etc.) and people who just like to create things – whether that is open source software, Widipedia entries, blogs, or whatever. The internet isn’t going to transform everyone into artists and there are plenty of downsides to what the internet has contributed to society. But overall, I think it is an exciting time to be alive.

Warhol’s fascination with the notion of celebrity is simply one chapter in a body of work that explores dehumanization, consumerism, cultural desensitization, and materialization – all very “American” virtues. His charismatic life was so intertwined with American society that a study of Andy Warhol becomes a sociological commentary on American culture itself. Warhol recognized his connection saying, “I feel very much a part of my times, of my culture, as much a part of it as rockets and television.” In many ways Andy was the American dream. He overcame poverty, physical flaws, and pathological shyness to become the king of pop culture. But Warhol’s story is even more than a rags to riches tale. Andy Warhol packaged himself as a product for consumption just like the cans of soup and bottles of Coke that he painted. Andy Warhol’s life was just as much a work of art as his paintings.

Pick any of the many books written about Andy Warhol and you will observe that nobody really ever has a solid grasp on who he actually was or what he was trying to do. Was he the voyeur he claimed to be or critic of the culture he commented on? Was he sincerely promoting beauty of ordinary objects or was he showing the absurdity of consumerism? Was he really callous towards life and death, or was he pointing out how valuable our lives should be? Was he a shy socialite or a cunning businessman? Was he the ultimate hipster, casually dismissing the importance of his art, or was he a philosopher with a firm grasp on art history? To fall for any single side of these arguments is to oversimplify his art. His popularity can be attributed to how easily it is for anyone (from art critic to blue collar worker) to add their own meaning to his work.

Andy, the non-stereotypical artist
Even if we have deep respect for art, most of us also carry a negative stereotype around with us about artists. Have you ever listened to an artist gush about their work talking about things that couldn’t possibly have any relevance to your life? You probably rolled your eyes and questioned the sanity of this person. When a person’s words don’t align with their artwork and the art fails to connect with the audience you have a recipe for irrelevance. That is the real genius of Andy Warhol. His artwork could be appreciated by almost anyone. When questioned about the meaning of his work he could have said something like, “I feel that the pressures of society have polluted the beauty of the common object irrevocably and I want to represent the impact that the ordinary has had on the bourgeois blah blah blah.” Instead he let his artwork stand on its own merits and allowed the audience to decide for themselves what it is all about.” That’s why Andy’s most memorable quotes are contradicting thoughts like:

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”

“In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

“I am a deeply superficial person.”

“I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer.”

“It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.”

The exception to the self-contradicting element in his work is his least successful work done in the 1980s. His portraits of celebrities were not very well received and are criticized for being too commercial. The irony of course is that this was exactly why Andy chose this subject matter. It was the same reason he painted Coke cans and soup labels – celebrities are also products of American consumerism. Nevertheless, Warhol’s work in the 80s does feel less timeless than his earlier work and there is truth to the notion that Andy was existing more and more as a business man and less as a pure artist. Had he not died in 1987 it is interesting to speculate about whether Warhol’s work would have continued towards the “business” side of the spectrum or if he would have regained a second wind and taken his art in a brand new direction.

What if Andy Warhol were still alive?
The thought of Warhol living in 2010 is worth a couple final thoughts. I joked with a friend recently that had he been alive today, Andy Warhol would most certainly have been a judge on American Idol. This position would give him the ability to single handedly dish out fame to people neatly packaged in fifteen minute packages. What else would Andy be involved with if he were still alive?

Perhaps Andy’s blog would be regularly updated with long posts about his cats and other less than fascinating insights into his life. The posts are tediously detailed and never talk about art directly. It is unclear whether Andy writes these posts himself or if he has assistants that help with the writing.

Andy Warhol wouldn’t have a twitter feed, instead favoring a more visual micro-blogging format. Andy Warhol’s flickr stream would be massive with photos of everything he consumed. The photos would be neatly categorized into collections like shoes, candy, weapons, condiments, and toiletries. All his photos are uploaded at high resolution and are released under a creative commons license that requires only that his name be displayed prominently with the reproduction.

What else do you think Andy’s life would include if he lived today? A reality show? Product endorsements? I am curious what you think, so please leave a comment if you have more ideas.

Over the next 56 years R. Buckminster Fuller would live an extraordinary life that did change the world. If you are unfamiliar with Fuller’s life and his work, I would like to give you a brief introduction to the achievements of a truly fascinating man.

Buckminster Fuller is best known for designing the geodesic dome. Actually, Fuller only popularized the dome which was invented 30 years prior to Fuller’s work. Nevertheless, his contributions to the geodesic dome, including some patents, will probably be the most visible part of Buckminster’s legacy. You know the iconic sphere at Epcot Center? It is also know as Spaceship Earth and is probably the most prominent example of Bucky’s geodesic structures. The thousands of domes in existence are fascinating structures, but they aren’t the most interesting of Fuller’s ideas in my opinion.

There are three words that Buckminster Fuller invented that pretty much sum up his design philosophy. Those words are livingry, tensegrity, and dymaxion. The fact that all three of these words get flagged by spellcheck is by itself a testament to Fuller’s personality as the definition of a non-conformist. If you read his writing you will probably laugh at some of the sentences he concocts. Not only did he make up words, he would write the longest run-on sentences you have ever heard. My point isn’t to ridicule his writing, but to point out that Buckminster had no use for the conventional obstacles that humanity had built around society. When language was insufficient for his purposes he would invent new words. When traditional rules of English limited his ability to explain his ideas, he unapologetically broke the rules. But I digress. Let me get back to the the concepts of livingry, tensegrity, and dymaxion.

Livingry
Livingry is the opposite of weaponry. Fuller believed that the goal of all professions should be in the support of life. His term for the world is “Spaceship Earth,” a term meant to recognize that our planet has a limited amount of resources. We are hurdling through space without an instruction manual and we need to learn how to best manage life here. Indeed, Fuller was in fact an environmental activist long before that term was perverted into the modern day stereotype.

Tensegrity
The word tensegrity is a combination of the words tension and integrity. You may have seen sculptures made of only steel cables and long metal rods. Without any outside support, these structures seem to defy gravity as they rise into the air.

Dymaxion
While the word dymaxion comes from “dynamic maximum tension,” it really is just a brand name that Buckminster used for several of his projects including his dymaxion car and the dymaxion house. Buckminster’s ideas about housing and the car were decades ahead of their time. The dymaxion house was designed for energy efficiency. The plan was to make the house easy to ship and assemble on any terrain. The three wheeled dymaxion car was fuel efficient, fast, and seated 11 passengers. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t ready for these inventions and both the dymaxion car and house never went into production. Here’s a video of the dymaxion car in action. Note the amazing turning radius:

Perhaps the world wasn’t ready for many of Fuller’s ideas. He has a great quote that says, “This is the real news of our century. It is highly feasible to take care of all of humanity at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever experienced or dreamt of. To do so without having anybody profit at the expense of another so that everybody can enjoy the whole earth. And it can all be done by 1985.”

Buckminster Fuller died in 1983. His gravestone says “Call me trimtab.” This is a reference to an interview where Fuller observes how a tiny rudder (the trim tab) can change the course of a giant ship. Bucky said “The little individual can be a trim tab…If you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and [change the direction of] the whole big ship…”

If you are interested in learning more about Buckminster Fuller, I encourage you to read his books, especially “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
.” The Buckmister Fuller Institute website is also worth a visit.

"Hosea," by Adrian Hanft, II

The story of my dad’s sculptures is in many ways the story of what it means to be a Christian and an artist. The reality of our culture is that Christianity often gets marginalized when it comes to “relevant” issues. Most of us are aware of the separation of church and state, but the church is separated from more than just government. Unfortunately, church has also been separated from the artistic community. If you attend my church you may wonder if there are many things that it actually is connected to. That’s a rant for another day, but my point is that being an artist and a Christian can seem like an invitation to not be taken seriously. So to see my dad being recognized for his artistic abilities as well as his Christianity feels like an amazing achievement. Listen to my dad’s interview on NPR to understand what I am talking about:

Interview with Adrian Hanft, II on Nebraska NPR show, Friday Live NET Radio (5.75mb)

It takes an amazing amount of determination to decide to carve in granite. With much softer stones available you really need to be committed to the task if you are going to carve granite. The dust is toxic, the tools are expensive, the stones are heavy and dangerous, and it takes a long time to complete a sculpture. Why would anyone voluntarily do this? The crazy thing is that deciding to become a pastor is an equally absurd decision. The pay is low, church politics are bitter and petty, and society has all but written off the church as irrelevant. Why would anyone voluntarily do this?

From the outside my father’s decision to be a pastor and a sculptor may seem hard to understand, but the reason is actually pretty simple. This is just who my dad is. The fact that his chosen task is difficult doesn’t even register on my his radar. He is just doing what he was meant to be. More than being true to himself, this is who God created my dad to for.

As I write this I understand for the first time a verse that says “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. When you live a life that is in alignment with God’s plan for you, your challenges won’t be a burden. In fact, you will actually find joy in the trials you face. Joy is exactly what will surprise you when you hear my dad talk about his work. You won’t hear my dad complaining or bragging about the challenges involved in his work. All you will hear is his joy as he talks about the process. I truly admire my dad for accepting the role that God has chosen for him.

If you are interested in seeing some more of my dad’s sculptures, you can go to stonesofscion.com.

The assignment was to make something that represented our families. Sounds simple right? The catch was that this wasn’t a drawing. It wasn’t a photo. As we tried to pin down Mr. Schatz about what exactly we were supposed to create, he was elusive. The more we pressed him the more confusing the assignment became.

We knew what a drawing was. We know what pottery was. We knew what photos were. We knew what songs were. We knew what a poem was. These things defined “art” as we knew it. But this assignment was something confusing, something foreign to us. Finally, Mr. Schatz gave us some vague direction. He said something like,

“Think about what your family means to you. You know these people better than anyone else in the world. You can’t sum up the most important people in your life with a drawing. You can’t represent your love for your mom with a poem. When you think about your brothers and sisters you feel something inside you. Focus on that – and then make something that feels the same way.”

Needless to say, we left class that day bewildered. We struggled with it. The word that comes to mind to describe what I felt was “terrified.” I was supposedly one of the talented artists in the class and I had no idea what to make.

As I struggled with the assignment, things gradually became clear. Creating something was secondary to the process. It didn’t matter so much what we made, what mattered was learning to think creatively, passionately, and personally. Shapes, color, paint, tools – all the familiar skills we were learning – were all finally given a purpose beyond “making pretty things.” For the first time in our lives, this thing called “art” was connected to something inside of us. It was terrifying, yes, but it was also empowering. It was a pivotal moment in my creative development.

This was in a public school in the midwest, Wentzville High to be exact, but I still wonder what impact traditional education has on creative development. So much of what we learn in school is how to memorize and recite answers. We learn what hoops to jump through and in what order. Do a, b, and c and you earn a diploma. Where does creativity come into play? Creativity isn’t something that you can create a formula for.

As a graphic designer I get paid to work for so-called “non-creatives.” It is a challenge that I gladly welcome, but I can’t help but wonder if these people are merely missing a creative component that should have been taught in school. These brilliant people are enormously intelligent with successful careers and more wealth than I will ever see. And yet when it comes to a visual vocabulary they are infants. When conversations stray beyond the physical/quantifiable/literal I see the same thing that I saw back in high school: terrified bewilderment. And just like in school some people embrace the new world, others run for cover and the comfort of more easily measured occupations.

Not to long ago I wrote a disappointed review of an article in Scientific American about new research being done on the subject of creativity. There is a similar article published in the new issue of Wired (November 2009) called “Flights of Fancy: Why an idling mind is the mother of invention” written by Clive Thompson. He talks about daydreaming and studies that are being done on the brain when it is idling. The conclusions seem to be that rather being time we are wasting it is actually a critical and complex brain function. It is similar to storage backup on a computer because the part of your brain that is active when your mind wanders is responsible for processing long term memories.

The article goes on to talk about the implications that this could have on business situations that focus on efficiency and productivity. Since daydreaming can’t be considered “billable time” it is safe to say that most businesses don’t encourage it. In reality, this could be some of the most valuable we spend at work. I am sure you can remember plenty of times when you had an insight to a problem come into your brain seemingly out of nowhere. That seems to be how our brains work, often hidden and unknown. You can’t force yourself to be creative.

The part of the article that I disagree with, however, is the recommendation that “unblocking” the social internet sites would somehow increase our daydreaming time. Letting your mind wander is not the same as updating your Facebook status or watching Flight of the Concords on YouTube. Surfing the web is an activity that requires thinking, no matter how mindless it is. Killing time and procrastinating isn’t going to lead to a breakthrough in creativity.

I would go a step further and say that surfing the web might actually stifle the creative power of daydreaming. Surfing the web, although lots of fun, keeps our brains constantly “on.” The brain is a muscle that needs to relax, too. It is the resting that is critical so that our brain can do it’s magic. Like I said when I wrote about the link between dreaming and creativity, sleep allows our minds to do things that we can’t do when we are awake. The same is true of daydreaming – if we give our minds the chance. We can’t use daydreaming as an excuse to be unproductive, but next time you come back to consciousness at your desk after a good daydream maybe you can feel a little less guilty.

Many designers are happy with this arrangement. Endless client revisions translates to more hours, which translates into more cash. It is easier to accept the destruction of your work if you can cash bigger checks as a result. Some designers can’t handle the hypocrisy and either drop out or become the stereotypical designer making fun of the clients behind their backs.

Luckily there is an alternative besides occupational hypocrisy and pessimistic burnout. The answer is to entrench yourself in the psychology and research behind what powers your intuition. Trusting your gut is important, but it isn’t enough. Your intuition works for a reason, and you can learn to explain why. If this type of thinking appeals to you, I urge you to read a few of the books I have been enjoying recently. They are:

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is a great look at why people are fooled by marketing. I think that too many people assume that the public is dumb, when in fact people are amazingly consistent and intelligent creatures. This book comes to conclusions that you couldn’t arrive at if you simply trust your intuition.

“Predictably Irrational” is a book I am just starting but I am already hooked. The problem with trusting your gut is that it makes mistakes because so much in the world is counter-intuitive and irrational. Learning how to predict the irrational is a great skill to have.

Here is some practical advice if you are trying to supplement your intuition. Study your reactions to marketing, art, and design. Sensitize yourself so that you can take mental inventory of things that you see that “work” and what doesn’t. Question everything you see. Never take anyone’s word for anything. Filter everything and never accept surface level answers to questions that seem straight forward. As you carefully study your own responses to your surrounding as well as the reactions of others you can start to apply the things you learn to your work.

The article points out that one factor contributing to creativity is “psychological distance” which they define as ” anything that we do not experience as occurring now or here. In other words, if you can take yourself out of your current mindset you will be more likely to think creatively. That isn’t groundbreaking research, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Unfortunately, the article ends with some terrible advice when it comes to the practical application of the scientific studies. The article says,

“…there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality.”

I think that is a pretty bad summary of some relatively intriguing research. Let me take it one point at a time.

1. Travel to faraway places.
This suggestion completely misses the point of the scientific research. Traveling to a faraway place is not the same as “psychological distance.” The point is to get your mind thinking differently, not to actually travel. Granted, a trip to a foreign country might inspire you, but traveling alone isn’t going to make you more creative.

2. Think about the distant future.
In the study, people are asked to think about themselves a year from now. Then they are asked to think of themselves solving an insight problem. This is a much more subtle way to think about a question than just saying, “Imagine how you would solve this problem in the distant future.” I guarantee if the question was phrased like that the answers wouldn’t be creative they would just involve people in silver suits and flying cars. That isn’t creativity, sorry.

3. Communicate with people who are dissimilar to you.
First of all, I can’t see where this suggestion is getting pulled from anywhere in the article. Maybe this one is just phrased badly. If it said “collaborate with people outside your normal circles,” it wouldn’t sound so bad. It feels condescending to me for some reason to assume that I would be surrounded by clones of myself.

4. Consider unlikely alternatives to reality.
Creativity requires that you do more than consider alternatives. You need to throw reality out the window and live there for a while. If the answer was reality then you wouldn’t need to be creative in the first place. I think it is funny that they added the word “unlikely” to that sentence to make it a little more redundant. I feel like this is saying “consider the unlikely, then get back to reality where you are more comfortable anyway.” Good luck with that.

The next sentence in the article says,

“Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly.”

The result of our modern times is that creative thinking is increasingly rare. The research cited shows that by default most people find it hard to think about problems from anything but a very literal point of view. They have to be “tricked” into being creative with scenarios that inject psychological distance into the question. More music, food, people, and vacationing isn’t going to make you more creative.

Here are some of the features of Dream Feedr:
• Quickly post a new dream in a “Twitter-style” interface.
• Each dreamer will have their own page showing their dreams.
• Each dreamer has their own RSS feed.
• Keyboard shortcuts for quick editing
• You can tag your dreams with keywords.

Click over to dreamfeedr.com to look around or to join for free. I have about ten dreams entered in there already, and I find it really interesting that all these thoughts would have been lost and forgotten if I hadn’t took a little time to write them down.

Dream Feedr is very much a “beta,” so it could change quite a bit depending on the response I get from people. Let me know what you think. If you have any interest in starting a dream journal I encourage you to sign up for a free account and test it out.

One of the things that I have been paying attention as I search for ways to be more creative is my dreams. Every once in a while I will wake up with answers to questions that I couldn’t answer the day before. Sometimes I will see things in my dreams that I can use when I wake up. Am I dreaming these things? It is safe to say that our brains are doing much more than resting when we sleep, but how can we capitalize on it?

I have never used drugs, but I can relate to artists who think that mind altering substances increase their creativity. Creativity could be defined as the ability to uncover the seemingly hidden solutions to situations. A creative person has the ability to see things that other’s would miss, no matter how long they look at the facts. It makes sense that someone who is extremely creative must have some “mind altering” abilities that other people don’t possess. How do they do it? Another word that creative people often get labeled as is “dreamer.” Maybe there is something to that stereotype.

Sleep allows our minds to do things that we can’t do when we are awake. In dreams we are not constrained by the rules of reality. Anything is possible. That is exactly the state that a person’s mind needs to be in if they are going to create something that doesn’t yet exist! It is a shame that so many of us dismiss our dreams as bizarre annoyances that prevent us from enjoying a good night’s sleep.

So how do we harness the power of our dreams? How can we optimize our sleep to maximize our creativity? That’s a tough question, but I have some ideas that I will share in my next post. Right now it’s bed time and I feel like dreaming.