Introduction

There is an entire history of discussion about the meaning of art and what constitutes creativity. You have been drawn to art from some place in your life that begs you to be expressive. This expression can come in innumerable ways, and in fact is a fundamental aspect of being human. 

Every generation attempts to redefine art, refining or rejecting earlier philosophies. Your position in time and place presents you with a distinct perspective on the subject. You may not have considered these issues at all before, or you may be completely obsessed and fully entrenched in a belief system about art and creativity already. Either way, it is important to be able to develop and communicate your philosophy. At the very least, it is of value to gain an appreciation of what drives us to create, and to acknowledge the work of others seriously, and with respect.

The entirety of our personal experiences is the lens by which we understand the meaning and value of art and creativity. My lens naturally differs from yours, and is constantly evolving. My perspective is from that of a dexterous and creative family of parents and siblings, where the visual arts were accepted and natural. Painting, drawing, and architecture were expressions various family members engaged in. Sculpture was my particular fascination, though it was in the classical sense that I understood it to be as a youngster. I loved the figurative works of Michelangelo, Donatello, Bernini, much older works by Greek and then Roman sculptors, and the newer figurative artists like Rodin. These were what I understood as sculpture up until about the age of 12 or 13.

I knew of other artists, though I did not develop an understanding or deep appreciation of their work until I grew a bit. I did not yet have the life-altering experiences of grasping the beauty of works by Henri Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Alexander Calder, Lehmbruck, Maillol, and many more 20th century sculptors until I accepted that their work was far more than depictive.

My early philosophy was simple: detailed depiction of human bodies; that was real sculpture. This came from the fact that the books around the house were more about painters than sculptors, and what did depict sculpture was old, historical, and essentially European. My parents had Picasso and Van Gogh posters on the walls, which I certainly knew of and considered real art.

Many of my sisters were very good painters and drawers, having taken over the local art scene at our school. They were all older than me and started attending art classes in college at the time I was still a young teenager. I thought of artists being women more than men, only to later be shocked by how the art history classes I took talked about almost no female artists at all.

I was a technical child, who understood the physical structure and nature of things. I analyzed objects for their function, and could tell what something did by its shape. In essence, I was the kind of person who would have done well to be the artist/scientist/inventor type of long ago. That kind of personality served its purpose well early on in creating a deep scientific understanding of our world. By the time I came to be, artists and scientists had long separated into completely different fields of study.

During my teen years, carving was my first real interest in sculpture, and I started with wood, using a screwdriver and a claw hammer. I had no skills or in-depth understanding of the human form, but I did start to understand the volumetric nature of works created by Henri Moore, Brancusi, and other abstract natural-form sculptors. I was attracted to these forms because they were voluptuous and beautiful, yet simple to make (in comparison to human realism).

A lot of what I thought as a child about contemporary art and sculpture was from the point of ignorance, fear, and even jealousy. I remember often thinking how unfair it was that someone could become famous by making seemingly simple artworks, like the work of Calder, who today I simply adore and love. I didn't understand how art was a constantly evolving reflection and expression of the time it was created. 

It took receiving an education in art to start appreciating the constantly evolving moments in time defined by art. In fact, the study of art as a historical and contemporary endeavor tells us about our culture, technology, understanding of nature, and the human condition better than any other field of study, because artists utilize everything that we create, be it technical, material, or philosophical. Art ever expresses contemporary feelings, beliefs, understandings, politics, and culture.

My sculptural work evolved over time from abstract natural forms, to phenomena-based explorations, to machine references, to pseudo-anthropological artifacts, to political and social statements, to the observation of everyday scenes around us, to digital installations, to sound installations to interactive labyrinths, to formal public works. The latter two having gained financial success, whereas all that came before them were done purely for the love of the process and personal exploration.

My perspective on what creativity is has changed little over my adult life, although now more than ever I believe that it is based purely upon evolutionary and biological artifacts of existence. Creativity to me is the natural tendency to find solutions to problems. I believe the mind and body naturally are built to survive through observation and experience. These processes modify and transform the brain in such a way as to best suit our needs of survival. We do not need to be conscious of how we naturally problem solve, or even understand the deep reasons why. Instead, we develop personal strategies to bring meaning to our world. This can lead to the development of mythologies and beliefs that help us find meaning and place, which can be completely untrue, but doesn't matter as long as these beliefs do not cause harm to others.