- Truth and Beauty
- Intuition and Creativity
- Synchronicity
- Wabi-sabi and Grunge
- Emptiness and Simplicity
- Putting It into Practice
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Intuition and Creativity
- "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
- —Albert Einstein
Intuition is an immediate insight of understanding without reflection or rational thought processing. Because it is difficult to investigate and quantify, intuition is regarded by most modern cultures as unreliable, unscientific, and irrelevant to the real world. Most educational training teaches you to override your intuition and places rational thinking (which drives materialism) in higher regard. But in many other cultures, and increasingly so in modern Western culture, intuition is regaining its status of being practical in a different way. It is the nature of intuition to spark and guide creativity, and it is an essential ingredient for anything new in the "real world" to happen at all.
As is obvious, creativity is the act of making or inventing an entity that didn't exist before. Intuition sets the stage for the freedom of creative thought to occur; as such, it's a good strategy to prepare for it. Creativity is a personal process, and there is no formula that can force it—by nature it is spontaneous. But that doesn't mean you can't encourage it with preparation. Consider a ballet dancer. The dancer must have all of the physical supports in place to execute the dance: eating right, resting well, and practicing the dance moves and timing diligently. When the sequence and timing of the movements are embedded in muscle memory, the brilliance of creativity takes over and becomes spontaneously fluid—which is best known as art. Design, like dance, is about more than mechanics (Figures 1.3 and 1.4). Although technical skills smooth the execution, intuition lubricates the flow of creativity and has equal importance to technique and skill. Clearly, skill and intuition combine to form the most creative and inspired result.
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1.3 This design was inspired by my appreciation of music expressed in the form of dance. The flow of the design is reminiscent of the intuitive process used to design it (as well as the subject matter), whereas the execution's success resides in the skill of combining technique and tool, in this case, Adobe Illustrator.
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1.4 Flamenco dance evolved out of Moorish dance influences during the Renaissance. The exclamation "olé!" was derived from the exclamation "Allah!" shouted when a Middle Eastern dancer inspired the beauty of God in the audience.
The word intuition comes from the Latin intueri, roughly translated as "the teacher inside." Intuition, as the American architect, inventor, and futurist Buckminster Fuller said, "is having integrity with oneself." After a difficult period in his life in the late 1920s, with no money, no job, and his daughter dying from polio, Fuller considered committing suicide at the edge of a lake. Later, he recounted a voice coming to him and saying, "You do not belong to yourself. You belong to the universe." Maybe you've heard this voice during a particularly critical moment in your life. There is no doubt when you hear it that it is truthful, or at least wiser, than you might be in that moment. Because Buckminster Fuller wrote a book titled Intuition in his later years, I wouldn't doubt he knew his intuition was giving him a simple and profound instruction for his life's path. He went on to dedicate his life to finding out what he might do to benefit humanity. In a 50-year-long experiment of how the universe works, Fuller developed 28 patents, authored 28 books, and received 47 honorary degrees. His most well-known invention, the geodesic dome, has been produced hundreds of thousands of times worldwide. But his true impact lives on in his continued influence upon generations of designers, architects, scientists, and artists who use his principles to approach living through design in a more graceful way.
Let's look at a couple of personal stories of intuition and creativity.
Joel Nakamura: Guest Designer Study
ILLUSTRATOR : UNITED STATES
Award-winning artist Joel Nakamura is known for his unique style: a blend of folk art and sophisticated iconography rendered in a neo-primitive technique. He is chosen for many of his commissions because of his knowledge of tribal art and mythology, and for his ability to convey stories and information in an intricate and engaging manner. Joel's ability to access the mythological and convey it in universal terms is based in his intuitive access via his openness to the common human story.
A Garden of Earthly Delights
A circle of white rabbits surrounds a single clown with a sinister smile (Figure 1.5). The leader of the rabbits is wearing a red vest and hat. We don't know why this little drama is taking place. The collection doesn't change, yet seems to be always changing, because I always seem to find some new, strange, diorama drama that is fascinating and amusing. The museum is one of my favorites in the world and is one of my muses.
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1.5 Joel finds his inspiration in quirky human art and stories that are often perfectly combined in antique children's toys. Multiple Visions: A Common Bond. Installation 9-8-Circus Scene.
I have been visiting museums since my childhood. My parents were both art educators, so our family was always off to the latest art exhibit. At first I was a reluctant participant, but I grew to truly appreciate museums. I think it's this background in experiencing art in person that gives me a creative edge. I find myself grateful to have stood for hours in front of Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights (Figure 1.6) when I was 10 years old.
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1.6 Hieronymus Bosch often depicted a bizarrely intricate and sinful humanity in his paintings (c. late 1400s–early 1500s), an early inspiration for Joel's illustration work.
As I got older, my inspirational sources moved into popular culture. I may be the only artist to quote Charles Bronson, anti-hero actor, as a creative influence. In the 1970s movie The Mechanic, Bronson plays a hit man. Each time he receives his assignment, he pins up all the information about his victim on a board, puts on some classical music, and looks at his collection of Bosch paintings. I liked the idea of immersing oneself in information until some kind of plan or concept begins to take shape. I was only in junior high school when I saw the movie, but I would plan my homework, term papers, and projects this way. Later, I would continue this process into art school and my professional career. I have an extensive library of books about art, artists, mythology, and more. Books are a great way to stimulate ideas or take me in a different direction. The Internet is also a good tool, but it lacks the visceral connection I get from surrounding myself with a pile of books.
My process has also evolved. I used to edit the sketches I would send clients. Now I send everything. I'm often surprised by the direction or sketch that's chosen. Clients enjoy seeing the number of doodles and my total creative output. When it's time to actually paint the work, it's a long, intensive process (Figure 1.7). A great help to keep up my stamina while working is listening to audio books. One of my favorite authors is Michael Connelly, who writes about an LA detective named Hieronymus Bosch.
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1.7 Joel's work is displayed in galleries and is also used for commercial purposes.
It is not very often that I find myself in a creative slump. When I do, the Folk Art Museum is my go-to place. And of course, there's always Hieronymus Bosch.
Stefan Sagmeister: Guest Designer Study
DESIGNER : UNITED STATES
Stefan Sagmeister, owner of Sagmeister Inc. and author of several design books, has created graphics for clients including the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed. His work is timeless and of the moment, reflecting his intimate but thoughtful approach that inspires his intuitively creative design.
Obsessions Make My Life Worse and My Work Better
I rarely obsess about things in my private life. I fail to care about the right shade of green for the couch, the sexual secrets of an ex-lover, or the correct temperature of the meeting room AC. I don't think I miss much.
However, I do obsess over our firm's work and think that a number of our better projects came out of such an obsession.
On September 13, 2008, Sagmeister Inc., began the installation of 250,000 Eurocents on Waagdragerhof Square in Amsterdam (Figure 1.8).
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1.8 A collaborative design of hundreds of thousands of Eurocents, addressing "obsession's" impact on the quality of life (above).
Over the course of eight days and with the help of more than 100 volunteers (Figure 1.9), the coins were sorted into four different shades and carefully placed over a 300-square meter area, according to a master plan.
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1.9 Volunteers working on the design's development in a public space.
After completion, the coins were left free and unguarded for the public to interact with. Less than 20 hours after the grand opening, a couple of local residents noticed a person bagging the coins and taking them away. Protective of the design piece they had watched being created, they called the police (Figure 1.10).
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1.10 After stopping the "criminal," the police—in an effort to "preserve the artwork"—swept up every remaining cent and carted them away.
Spontaneously creative displays—particularly in the public realm—are often not appreciated for very long. It would seem, although loved by onlookers and participants, and appreciated by those in need of a few extra cents, the police deemed the exhibit inappropriate.