Creative Thinking in Art

Painter Scott Thorp knows how to grow your creative potential

My latest podcast episode is an interview with Scott Thorp, an artist, writer and educator specializing in creativity. He’s been teaching creative thinking for over 20 years. He has a unique perspective as a practicing artist and an art school educator. Because of his experience, he’s able to bring together creativity research with artistic practice in a very powerful way.

Scott is a professor at Augusta University and is the Chair of the Department of Art and Design and the Associate Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research. Scott earned his MFA in multi-disciplinary art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. In addition to his artistic practice, he was a regular contributor to the international art magazine, ArtPulse, where he wrote about technology-based, contemporary artists. Before Augusta University, he was a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) from 2005 to 2015, where he was the Design Coordinator and he designed and taught the course “Creative Thinking Strategies.”

I met Scott at SCAD in 2010, when I was on a sabbatical leave from Washington University. I lived in Savannah for a wonderful six months, with my wife and son. My wife and I try to get back at least once every year because we really fell in love with that city.

This interview was automatically transcribed by Temi.com. Although I’ve read through it, I can’t promise I’ve corrected every possible error; there might be errors in the transcription.

Teaser

Scott (00:00):

One of the funny things about creativity is it's hard work. You know, there's a lot of stuff that you have to do to get better, and students don't really understand that coming in. And I think people who wanna be more creative don't understand that it's work.

Introduction

Keith (00:17):

Scott Thorpe is an artist, a writer, and an educator specializing in creativity. I've known him since 2010 when he was a professor at SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. I interviewed him about his own creative process and about how I taught students how to be creative. His insights helped me as I was writing my book, learning to see inside the world's leading art and design schools. Since 2015, he's been a professor at Augusta University where he's the chair of the Department of Art and Design, and he's the Associate Vice President for interdisciplinary research. If you like this episode, please rate the show or leave a comment or click “Like.” All of these things help spread the word about the show, and they help other people like you find out about the show. You can listen to The Science of Creativity on all podcast platforms. Now, here's our interview.

The Interview

I'm here with Scott Thorpe, who's a professor at Augusta University. He's one of the artists that I interviewed way back in 2010 when I started doing my interviews with artists and designers who were professors in BFA and MFA programs. That was way back in 2010. So I'm really happy to be here and have a conversation with Scott about creativity, art, and design. So, welcome, Scott. Well,

Scott (01:37):

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Keith (01:39):

Yeah, you were one of the first people I interviewed, and I didn't know anything about art and design back then. I'm a creativity researcher, but I'm a pianist and a musician, so I had to depend on people like you to tell me, you know, what is it like to be a painter, <laugh>? How do you teach people how to do that? And you were just incredibly articulate. So I'm looking forward to talking about that. So I'm gonna start with the question. I actually started all my interviews with this question, and let me know what you think. So here's the question I always asked. How do you teach people how to be creative?

Scott (02:17):

For me, it's a little different than other people because when I was down at SCAD when we talked, I actually was teaching a course on creativity down there, and it was something that it, it was a course that we found over in industrial design, and the conversation was they wanted to get rid of the creativity course that they had. And I thought that was bizarre because I thought, you know, we're art design, we should be teaching creativity. And I didn't really know why they wanted to get rid of the course. And so I asked my dean, I said, you know, can I go over there, talk to them about that course, and bring it over to our area, which was foundation studies so we can teach all the students about creativity, and hopefully maybe I'll learn a little bit about it too. And the problem was when I went to go talk to them, was that they had hired a psychologist to teach a course about creativity, and the students signing up for the course were industrial design students.

Scott (03:09):

So they wanted to be creative. So there's a little bit of an impasse there where the, the faculty was looking for one thing and the students were looking for another, and they weren't really happy with how it kind of matched up. So I got approval to bring it back over to my field and teach it through my department. And one of the first things that we did, we, we, you know, you gotta figure out what creativity means. And honestly, we didn't understand what it meant. <laugh>, you know, uh, we, we, we were really confusing expression with creativity a lot of times. And there's that old conversation, uh, can you teach someone to be an artist? You know, there's actually a book about that by James Elkins. Yeah. And have you seen that book?

Keith (03:50):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I read that. it's Why Art Cannot Be Taught, I think is the title.

Scott (03:56):

Yeah, exactly. And I know James and he, we've had interesting conversations about that. So when I was talking to my colleagues, you know, the first responses were, you know, can you teach that? You know, and I don't think you can, and all this, that, and the other. But the more I got into it, I just figured out that it's a set of skills, you know, that you can build. And we might not have be able to be Picasso at the end, or, you know, some genius like Einstein, but we can always improve our skills, which makes our creativity level go up. I talked to my students, you know about things like when you were little, you know, your parents put you out in some kind of sport or some activity or something like that, and you were probably horrible at it in the beginning, but that didn't stop them from keep putting you out there year after year being, you know, over time you gained the skills, you got better. You might not be a leader of the world in that sport, but you, you're better than you were before. And so wherever you are now, I can give you a handful of devices or strategy and things like that that'll enable you to be more creative, because when you break it down, you just have to produce something that's a little different than other things and seems to be serving some kind of purpose. Always use a, a very simple definition of the production of something novel and useful. I don't know, does that stray from yours?

Keith (05:13):

Yeah, exactly. Oh, the classic definition of creativity. Yeah. Original, new and also useful.

Scott (05:20):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then, you know, one of the things that's really interesting, so now I, I've taken that course, I taught it there for a while, and now I've turned it into design thinking here where I'm teaching at Augusta University, and I teach it more of a hybrid class. It's not like a peer design thinking course, it's more about creativity with design thinking elements in it. And the interesting thing on the first day of class is I just have my students make a list of ideas, you know, and they could be any number of ideas or any kind of ideas that they wanna put down there, and they really, really struggle, uh, because they really don't know what I mean, you know, it sounds like a pretty simple thing to do, just make a list of ideas about 20 of them, but they have a tough time because of the expectations behind it. And then once I lower their expectations, <laugh> really, when it comes to idea generation, they can do more. And it's by little things like that, that over time we get to where we can really solve some interesting problems with some really unique solutions.

Keith (06:21):

I know you've taught drawing and painting and 2D design, and there's a lot of skills associated with drawing a painting, of course. But you're not talking about skills, like skills withholding a pencil. You're talking about creativity skills that are general across disciplines. Is that right?

Scott (06:38):

Yeah, that, that is correct. But I do teach drawing. I've taught drawing, I've taught painting, I've taught all kinds of design classes and, uh, things of that nature. And in drawing class, I do teach 'em how to hold a pencil. That's the kind of a funny thing at the beginning of the class, they, they almost take offense at that. When you teach <laugh>, you say, you're gonna hold a pistol like this, not like you've been holding it before, but in the, uh, design thinking class, it's about creativity and idea generation.

Keith (07:02):

Ah, okay. So you have the skills, and you mentioned that design thinking isn't quite the same thing as creativity. So yeah. Say a little bit about that. How would you describe those two things?

Scott (07:13):

Well, so I think when you're teaching a creativity course, you're usually following the general, you know, preparation, incubation, illumination, and kind of verification strategy. And you're doing that design thinking adds a human element to it. So you're basically designing for a particular person or a group or something like that, which adds a little bit more of a twist onto the end of it. So there's an added component where it's, uh, empathy, where you're asking questions, seeing what people actually want, rather than creating a solution that would be for just anything.

Keith (07:47):

Oh, exactly. And yeah, I've seen some of the articles that you've been in or written about, you've talked about iteration and innovation coming from users.

Scott (07:57):

Right. Yeah. And you know, the interesting thing about all these creative thinking strategies courses is that it, it is iterative, you know, like the, the other courses we teach in art and design, and it is also, they don't talk about this enough. It's generative. You know, you don't wait for, uh, inspiration or anything like that. This is creativity on demand, you know, whenever you need it, whenever somebody asks for it, you can come up with something. And that's another thing that really helps students because, you know, there's this thing, uh, for artists that create a block that people would get into. And that's when you're waiting for inspiration to hit. And instead of waiting for inspiration to hit, you should just go ahead and start doing things to make problems, jump outta your head and ideas jump outta your head. So you're always producing.

Keith (08:48):

And if you're gonna be a professional artist, you can't just wait for inspiration. You have to be a continual creator. Right?

Scott (08:55):

And, and so you have to have a way of doing things. And usually that's for, for most artists, it comes in the form of sketches and, uh, research always being out there in the field. And, you know, for me, one of the main things I think helps, and this is something I try to develop in my students, is, uh, curiosity, curiosity kind of compels you to move forward with things, you know, and this has its counterpart anxiety, which kind of holds you up whether you should do something, but if you really increase your level of curiosity, you're compelled to do stuff, and you're always looking into new ideas or looking things online or doing research in museums, things of that nature. And once you fill your head with so many possibilities, it, it's natural for you to wanna do something with them.

Keith (09:43):

I know you've talked about curiosity a lot. So could you say a little bit more about what you mean by that? How would you define curiosity really?

Scott (09:51):

I, I guess at its core, it's really a desire to know more. And it's based on a, uh, what you could, could consider a perceived knowledge gap. So you come to find out that you don't know something, and so therefore you wanna go find out what that is that you don't know to close that gap. So, you know, it, it is an area, like when I've looked it up, it seems like it doesn't have as much research as it should have, uh, because it's an interesting topic, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of books in the library on curiosity, but there's different kind of, uh, like, I guess you could call 'em types. One is, uh, perceptual, and that's more like if you were walking down the sidewalk or something and you see a crack and you notice it, and so you don't trip on the crack or an animal in the wild, you know, like a deer eating berries or something, you know, it has to keep, its high out so it doesn't get attacked by a wolf or something, you know?

Scott (10:42):

So it's a kind of a, a defense mechanism in some sense. And then there's this other one that's called epistemic, which is more reflective. And it's about your ability to understand concepts and what you do and don't know. And if you were in a lecture or in a conversation with somebody, they bring up a topic that seems really interesting and you don't know much about it, and you go look it up. That's epistemic curiosity. And usually, you know, in both of these, it, it basically, it compels you to do something, which I, that's the thing I find really interesting about it is it's, I, a lot of people call curiosity the, uh, engine of innovation. I consider it the gas and then like anxiety, the break. But if you can, uh, get students or yourself curious about something, you tend to be more productive.

Keith (11:31):

So let's assume that if you're less creative or let's say <laugh>, if you're less curious, then you're gonna be less creative. And then if you're more curious, you're gonna be more creative. It sounds like that's where you're going. So how can we learn to be more curious than we already are?

Scott (11:47):

Usually? I, I think because I spend a lot of time trying to get my students to be more curious, 'cause I'm interested in them to use this stuff after class, I want them to have the knowledge for a long period of time and on their own, you know, after the class is over, say, I'm gonna employ some of these things. So, and it, it mostly comes from experiential learning practices, you know, uh, learning by doing. And that's why the studio model is such a, a great model for this because we, we do things in class. Students actually are, are making things, uh, they're reflecting on things. They see projects come to completion. They're not theoretical and the touching, feeling, engaging back and forth in conversations. I've actually turned my class around a little bit. So it's kind of more self-directed by the students than it used to be.

Scott (12:34):

I tell a lot of stories in class and they seem to be interested in that. And then they can kind of tell them back to me. And a lot of good old fashioned Socratic method stuff like, you know, mirroring, asking them what we're doing, what we're supposed to be doing. And it, it, it increases engagement. And if you can find a way to, to teach to individual students rather than a class, they seem to be, they have greater retention and they kind of hang on to things. And if they find out that hard work leans leads to benefits, then they're more apt to go out and be curious about doing more hard work.

Keith (13:08):

You mentioned the studio model, and that's something I found incredibly compelling. In 2010 when I first went and observed some classes at scad, I didn't go to art school and I don't have an art school degree, and I was already a college professor, but my PhD's in psychology, so I was teaching a psychology class, kind of like every other college class, you do some lecturing and then you lead some discussion. So it blew me away when I saw what was going on in these studio classes. And that's really what my writings are about, is exactly the studio model. So say a a little bit about that. How would you describe the way you teach?

Scott (13:48):

So, you know, whoever incorporated it into the art and design curriculum, I thank them. You know, I guess it was an evolutionary thing, but it seems to be a great model and a very contemporary model now. And you can think of it as kind of combining all the other models. You know, you could say there's like a lecture model, a seminar, seminar model, a studio model, apprenticeship model, stuff like that. And the, uh, the studio model has, I think we do a little bit more lecturing than we used to do because the concepts are different now. But in addition to that, we do a lot of hands-on demos for students. Uh, the classes are actually longer than other classes. So normally, like a lecture class meets for two and a half hours a week, ours meet for two and a half hours a day twice a week.

Scott (14:34):

So we have more time with our students. And it's, uh, semi like an apprenticeship type thing where you have someone who knows a lot about a discipline, showing skills and doing demonstrations. Then the students modeling that. And the interesting thing about it is, you know, when you're using skills, it's not necessarily true that you just need to know the skills. It's, you need to know when to use the skills and how to react to certain situations. And that's when, like a faculty member, let's say you're teaching a drawing class, you usually have your own drawing going in the class while the students are drawing. So they can walk back over to yours and see how you're reacting to certain things that are happening. And you know, when you kind of have problems in your drawing, how do you correct that? And so once they come out of there, they feel pretty comfortable. They know how to start a work of art. They know how to kind of get through the middle part, which is, you know, making sure everything's kind of correct and then finishing off and what it looks like to finish a painting or a drawing, because sometimes that's the most difficult time. What do you do at the end? When do you stop? And things like that.

Keith (15:38):

I know that your MFA is in 1997 at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and you majored in fine arts and then you've had exhibitions. You know, your first one was in 1997 and you didn't even start teaching at SCAD till 2005. So you were at that time already an established artist. So, uh, what you're doing is, I guess, mentoring them or apprenticing them in becoming a successful artist like you are.

Scott (16:06):

Yeah. And that, that's basically how it is. And the, the funny thing is, I think a lot of artists, when you get outta school, at least back in the day when I graduated, we didn't really know what we did, you know, <laugh>, we just did it. And when you get into class, uh, trying to explain that to students, well first you had to unwind what you were doing. You know, you had to think back and you say, what do I do in the studio? How do I deal with this? How do I get past this problem? How do I make a painting a ball from the beginning to the end? And I was actually really fortunate because I, when I started teaching right out of grad school, I had one job at high school, the Mount Royal, um, and not Mount Royal, that's my graduate school.

Scott (16:46):

Um, the, uh, Mount Mount St. Joseph's High School is up in Baltimore. And then I also taught at Anne Arundel Community College at the same time. And I got my best training for teaching from high school. 'cause I had a mentor in there. We had a, a large art classroom that had two sides to it. And I would mostly teach on one side, and the senior guy would teach on the other side, and I would watch what he did and how he would explain things. Then I would bottle that on my side. The interesting thing is, when I got to Anne Arundel and I taught my first drawing class over there, the, the funniest experience I had was when the first day of class when all the students were gathered, they were staring at me. And then I was like, oh yeah, I've gotta talk, you know, <laugh> and so <laugh>, this is all landing on me. But one of the interesting outputs of, or outcomes from teaching is you get really good at the techniques and, uh, what you're supposed to be doing yourself. So I had to relearn a lot of the things that I had learned in college just so I could tell other people how to do it. And so I really got better at my own art from being a teacher.

Keith (17:54):

You have to be a lot more reflective and you have to have a more explicit understanding of what it is that you're doing. Mm-hmm

Scott (18:01):

<affirmative>. Yeah. And then it is basically why, you know, why, why are you doing that? Why are you doing it now? You know, what's what, what are the choices? I have to be able to do that and to art, to articulate something, it helps you to understand more in depth about what it is you're actually doing. And I, I, I just found that really rewarding. And I, I like the student interaction, so it, it's always a fun thing for me to be in the classroom.

Keith (18:24):

As a creativity researcher, I could go and interview artists, I could interview any practicing artist. But I think when I interview professors and, you know, everyone who teaches in art school is a professional artist. You have your own practice and this is just what you do. It's part of your identity, but you do have to develop an ability to articulate that and share it with other people in a way. Like you said, many artists don't know how to talk about what they do, and they don't have to be able to talk about what they do well. And

Scott (18:58):

I also think that some people are actually worried about telling what they do 'cause they, they're scared they're gonna give it the secret sauce because art seems like a magical thing in some ways, and it's very transcendent when you do it right. And then to give up all your secrets, you know, is maybe not necessarily the, the most comfortable thing to do. But I think that as we're coming more in into the contemporary time, because art is so pervasive in everything, you know, art and design and the skills that we develop are all over the place because we have this creative economy out there. And, you know, people are doing all kinds of creative things that we never could do before. And so I, I think that what we do in the classroom and, and as artists is more valued than ever. And I think that we're learning that and we're basically discovering it ourselves more clearly what we're doing, and that we're able to share that with others.

Keith (19:51):

It's a real gift to the students to be <laugh>. I like what you said, sharing Yeah. The secrets of creativity. But it seems to me, you know, I've been a, a lot of people feel this way about creativity in general. That it has this, uh, mysterious or mystical characteristic to it, or it comes unbidden from the subconscious. And then me and you both, when we're teaching creativity, we realize that it is a set of skills that you can learn. You can, you kind of need to demystify it right at the beginning of the class to, uh, I don't know, to, uh, tell people that this mystical viewer, this mythical view isn't actually correct.

Scott (20:33):

Right. And, you know, and I, I use a lot of analogies for students to get them over that hump. 'cause you know, a lot of 'em, you know, when you're teaching in a public institution rather than a private art institution like scad, the, the public institution, you have a wider range of students coming in. And some of these students aren't really sure, you know, they're always in the right major or something like that. They're a little intimidated because some of these students have been working their whole life doing these kinds of things, and they're new to it. But really demystifying creativity in general, I think is important. And if you could show results, like just making lists, you know, if you make lists over time, you get really good at making lists, you know, what do you do with those lists? You know, basically you just keep making 'em and you're reflecting on 'em, and you can include 'em in some of your solutions.

Scott (21:19):

One of the things that also is kind of interesting is I, I have students sometimes chart how creative an idea or a concept might be. And so we have one axis, we a degree of novelty, and then the other axis usefulness, you know, and you can kind of see, you know, something's very, very functional, but it's not very different from anything else. Or this one's really different but not very functional, or this one kind of hit the sweet spot where it seems like it's different from a lot of things, but it's also very useful. And you could say, well, that's pretty creative right there. And they're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. So it's not like I just have to be pulling these out of my sleeve. It's like, I can actually work on this and get better at it if I just use these techniques.

Keith (22:04): You're listening to The Science of Creativity, a podcast about art, design, and invention. If you're enjoying the episode, I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast and rate the show and leave a comment because it helps people like you find the show. You can find The Science of Creativity on all podcast platforms.

Keith: Do you think that explicit and conscious awareness of the process of those techniques, do you think that helps someone be a better painter or designer?

Scott (22:35):

It makes 'em be more open. I think we, we, we sometimes get caught up in the things that we want to do, rather than the things that are working. And I think the more you're able to scoot back a little bit and be aware of the process, you can become a better painter or whatever it is. Because a lot of times we see students who just have a way of doing things and they have a lot of ability, but like, when you're talk about learning to see in your book, they, they can't see the whole equation. They see what they wanna see, rather than what's really there. And basically what you're trying to do is make a work of art that works for a number of people, you can say, gonna be just for yourself, but most people wanna exhibit when they make work. So they, it's for others, uh, to enjoy as well.

Scott (23:22):

But kind of breaking it down into processes, what, how it looks to brainstorm or kind of put different ideas together, synthesize concepts or, you know, emulation is also a big thing that students don't think about. We, we always saw, you know, Picasso said, you know, good artists, I think take and great artist, steel, something like that. But looking at it what other people have done and emulate that, you know, you kind of copy it with the intent to better. I always tell students, you can't run away from yourself. So if you're copying someone else, you just keep letting it ride until it becomes yours. And then you can see how it gets better and better. But a lot of students, when they, they come straight outta high school, they have a way of drawing or painting or something like that. And sometimes it's hardest to, or most difficult to educate those students in the ways they should be working than, uh, the other students who have a very open mind and low expectations because they don't think they're good.

Keith (24:18):

When you say an art student can't see what they've done, and you're talking about, and I know 'cause I, uh, talked to you before, a student generates a painting or a sketch and they put it up on the wall and you're all talking about it, and the student will start describing what's in the painting. And everyone else in the class is looking at this painting and not seeing it <laugh> in the painting, and the student thinks it's there, but they don't see what's really there. Right?

Scott (24:46):

And, and so they, they kind of project onto the painting because they have past knowledge of what they want it to be. So there's this one student I had that was, it may have been the student you're talking about right now. May I told you this in the past, but long, long time ago when I was teaching at Anne Arundel Community College, I had this student named Mark. He was really enthusiastic about everything, and he was really interested in the class. It was amazing design class. And at some point we were making self portraits, but they were abstract. He was, we, we had our critique at the end of the project, so we were putting him on the wall and talking about him, and I could see him just turning red in the back of the class when we were talking about all these people's self portraits.

Scott (25:28):

And eventually, you know, I thought, well, he's getting kind of tense. So I just asked him a question, you know, so what do you thinking Mark? And he, he was really like, how can you judge someone else's a self-portrait, especially when it's abstract and what their intentions were? And I was like, well, you know, we can judge it on how other people are viewing it, you know, because you're trying to communicate to other people. And so he wasn't sold on that. So I took him outside of the hallway for a second outside li performing experiment, and I asked him to tell me what his, uh, self-portrait was about. And so he gave me a long litany of things, uh, that were included and what it was about and stuff like that. And so I came back in and we put his up there and we talked about it as a class without him talking.

Scott (26:14):

And the students didn't get any of the things that he thought they were gonna get. And it was one of the points where he was like, oh, so I have to communicate to others my intentions, not just to myself, because they're not gonna get it unless I put it in the painting. And that was a real revelation to him. And I think it's a revelation to a lot of artists when they kind of start thinking, you know, I want this to be an, a work of art that communicates to a broad range of people rather than just myself.

Keith (26:44):

I like what you said that it has to be in the painting, so why is it that someone would think it's in the painting, but then it's not really there?

Scott (26:52):

Oh, well that's interesting. You know, it's a concept I think about a lot because I think we have expectations and until we learn otherwise, we keep those expectations. You know, like if something, we wanted to have a lot of contrast, but it doesn't, and we just kind of force it in our brain to kind of compensate for that. Or, you know, sometimes I think when you say, if you're gonna meet someone at a coffee shop or something like that, and you're downtown and you're waiting for them to walk up, people in the distance all seem to take on characteristics of your friend until they get close enough for you to tell otherwise. So it's all like, we have these expectations when we look at things, and unless somebody tells us otherwise, we keep those expectations also. So like, you, you think you're masking something in the painting, maybe you're really not putting it in there and nobody else could, uh, see that because they don't know what your intentions are. Does that make sense?

Keith (27:48):

Yeah, that's, uh, very well said. I think

Scott (27:50):

Yeah, it, it is an interesting concept because you've gotta get things on the painting on the surface for people to be able to react to them. You can't keep 'em in your head.

Keith (28:00):

It's interesting because I found that sometimes when I talk to people about my book learning to see, and I say professors in art school are teaching students how to see and teaching students how to think. And I found, I've actually gotten some resistance from people saying, how could you impose your own beliefs about thinking onto these artists? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Artists are, you know, individuals and they have their own ways of working and you know, it's kind of oppressive maybe to be imposing on them your way of seeing. So I don't think that's true, but how would you respond to that?

Scott (28:36):

When you're truly talking about how to see is how to really observe critically and in depth, uh, to analyze your situation. I remember when I, when I took drawing one myself, when I was, uh, in college, we got to this point where you would, we were drawing what are called negative shapes or negative space, and that's the, all the empty space in between the objects that you see. So between like your computer monitor and maybe your lamp, there's this open space over there, and we in, uh, basic drawing classes have students really focus on that space. So when you get done with a composition, it locks in like a jigsaw puzzle. The positive space and the negative space, it becomes really tight composition. But until somebody's really pointed that space out, you don't notice it's there. And I remember after completing a homework assignment one time, I was driving back to class and all I could see was negative space <laugh>.

Scott (29:33):

And it was one of these things where I was like, wow, I've never even seen that before, and now that's all I see. You know? So it's, it's, you're training your, your brain to see different ways that are actually there and to understand what's actually there for other people to see. And you, you have to be able to also train your brain to see and what other people are doing, you know, to really analyze without bias what's happening. Because we impose our thoughts on our vision a lot, and I, I don't know how to accurately describe that, but it, it just seems like we, you can talk to two people that have seen the exact same event, and both of 'em will have a totally different description of it.

Keith (30:11):

So you would say it's not the case that you're imposing your description on something, but that you're, you're really helping or guiding a student to see something that's really there out in the world.

Scott (30:24):

Yeah, you're sharpening a skill, you know, and you're able to kind of understand what really is going on objectively, because we want things to happen and we compensate when they don't happen. But, you know, as an artist or a designer, you've really got to have a really discerning eye and to make something that's not cliche, that's not simple, something that's more transcendent and complex and effective, you have to incorporate all these different things into it. You know, including historical references, you know, and all the elements and principles of design, uh, that we, uh, teach students how to use. So it really is an, uh, more of a complex understanding, I guess. It's like people reading poetry, some people read poetry and it's a bunch of words that don't make sense, or maybe they rhyme, but other people are able to get in there and uncover a lot of things inside of poetry if they know what to expect and what's going on inside of it. So if you develop your visual iq, I guess you could call it, then you're more perceptive and you're more, uh, able to make things that communicate to others.

Keith (31:31):

Well, this is a great discussion and we are in complete agreement, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate again and say, when you use terms like a, a painting being cliche or a painting being effective, somebody might say that's a subjective judgment. And the student might say, Hey, I think it's effective. And the professor says, I don't think it's effective. Now I agree with you. I don't think it's purely subjective, but, uh, so yeah, how would you address that to help a student understand that it's not really just the professor's aesthetic going on here, but it's something, uh, more objective you said?

Scott (32:08):

Yeah, so there's certain things, and most of it is really developing the basics, which are the elements and principles of design, and that's like line value, texture, color, and then rhythm and balance and things of that nature. And to be able to create a, a compositional structure in a picture plane, which is what you're working on, that is dynamic, that's movement. Because if you just take, you know, like a lot of students do in beginning drawing classes and you make your composition in the middle of the page and you don't use the corners, it looks like it's, uh, kind of weak and in the distance. But if you pull it up and you crop a lot of things off the edges and you work all the way up to the corners and you have a more complex and dynamic composition with a lot of diagonals in it, it just seems like people engage it more.

Scott (32:57):

And so as long as you're kind of using those elements and principles and coming back to those to really continue developing something, then you can also build a meaning with inside of there as well. It seems kind of natural. It just takes a little while for the student to come on board to be able to examine something in that nature. And that's what really what the critique does is, you know, time and time again, you know, I never knew how effective the critique was for students until I used it when I was down at sc. I would call my students back in after a couple years, I would ask 'em to tell me about my class and if whether it was effective or not, and what we learned. And a lot of the things that they learned were from critiques, including public speaking, learning to see, being able to analyze things just by talking about it.

Scott (33:43):

So you see one person's interpretation of a, a drawing or a painting and another person's interpretation of a drawing and painting. And then you kind of figure out what you wanna make when you're making something and what you want other people to get out of it, and how do you arrange it in a way to manipulate that. So that comes from color schemes. If you're using particular colors, whether they're warm or cool colors, you know, cool colors, recede in the space, warm colors come forward, are you doing that effectively? Are you making the diagnose push back into space or are they pushing things up to space? And some things being just a little bit out of balance makes the composition have a little bit more tension. You know, things of that nature. Once you break it down, it seems to work, but in, in the beginning, suit are kind of defensive.

Scott (34:31):

And I think a lot of people, you know, they think that you're imposing your interest on it. But, and you know, to some degree I think we are, because some people like more dynamic compositions, other people like more static compositions, and so you kind of have to take that into consideration. So I wouldn't say it's wholly objective, it's got some subjectivity in there, but for the most part we're, we're saying, you know, and I, I was pretty surprised in your book, because I read through your book already, is that we're really consistent as our teachers when I thought that we would be all over the place. <laugh>.

Keith (35:02):

That's right. Yeah. So, uh, oh, this was so fascinating, your answer. I heard three different ways of learning to see, and one of them was learning to see like the viewer instead of seeing like you the creator. And another thing you said was learning to see basic visual principles, like warm colors come forward. So some people might kind of intuitively get that, but they haven't explicitly thought about it. So there are a lot of these basic principles that you mentioned where I guess you would say it helps people be better creators or better painters if they're consciously aware of those things as opposed to just having an intuitive understanding of them. So do you think that they really do become better painters if they can be explicitly aware of these things?

Scott (35:52):

Oh, yeah. And you know, and showing by example, you know, you can see tons of artists in the past who've done this, you know, there's a difference between work that's in cafes and works that's in museums, you know, nothing against work that's in cafes, but the stuff that's in museums is really vetted, you know, people invested a lot of money and, uh, to it and resources, uh, over time and this particular artist, and they become part of collections. And there there's reasons for that. And if you study those works, they just have a better presence to them, you know, they, they sustain themselves within that picture plane more than other people's work. And you know, if you go into, well, I tell my students that, you know, and especially in my beginning classes, I say, go into a cafe or a bar or something where they have an art display and I want you to look at the corners of works.

Scott (36:45):

You know, just see what the corners look like. And usually like a beginning artist will get tired around the corner and their, the marks that they make aren't as, uh, deliberate as marks in the middle of the composition. And what that does is to the viewer, it makes you think that you didn't care much about that area, and so therefore you think is like a, a, a, a less worthy or valuable piece. But if you go into a museum, unless it's a sketch that they've been doing, those people work everything, you know, and so they're, they, you can tell that they've done things over and over and over to per perfect, their compositions and their value and their approach and brush strokes and everything like that is thought out. And I, I, and also like when you go back to works and, uh, cafes and bars and stuff like that, uh, if you look at the technique of applying paint or, uh, things of that nature, it can be pretty inconsistent. And when you're looking for a certain consistency and what you're doing, so it's not distracting to the viewer,

Keith (37:47):

It seems like it's really about the process. You were talking about the, the works in the Muses that seem more fully realized, I would think that the painter has gone through a lot more iteration. So they've generated a version and then they step back and look at it, and they can tell that the corners aren't quite right, and so they'll go back and redo it. And that's one of the things that you're teaching in these programs, is you're teaching this particular iterative process of working.

Scott (38:15):

Yeah. And, and that's something that we all seem to have in common is that we believe in iteration. And I had a professor in college who said, you're not a painter unless you've thrown away a hundred paintings, you know, <laugh>, and, and, and it's just getting used to failure, you know, and, and the idea, I think a lot of people misinterpret what we mean by failure, because we don't mean to fail when the final product's there. It's, you fail along the way so that your final product is really good and you're open to revision, you're open to change and things of that nature. So your, your craft continually evolves. So we, we all really believe that the process and, and I think we pretty commonly talk to students that the, the product is not as important as the process is. And if you believe in the process and you get good at the process, then your product almost always is much better.

Keith (39:06):

You mentioned failure, and that's actually one of the things I wanted to talk about. You know, one of my chapters in the book is called Failure, and I saw a lot of professors in Art de Design School who say it's important for students to fail, but of course, students hate failing <laugh>. Yeah. <laugh>. So how do you, how do you make that work? How do you help failure lead someone to more fully realize their potential as opposed to having failure be, uh, I don't know, destructive or debilitating?

Scott (39:34):

Well, I think that the critique helps, uh, the iterative process helps because when you're doing multiple drawings, multiple sketches, multiple paintings, things of that nature, not all of them are gonna work. And then you learn from the failures. You look at them and you see what they don't have, but you don't know that thing that they don't have until you do it. You know, and you can talk about those things all day long, but until you screw something up on the painting, you don't understand where you're going because they really, what, uh, an artist is trying to do is get to some point in the work where it feels like you're standing on the edge of the cliff and leaning forward about as far as you can go before you fall. You know, because you're trying to get that tension in the work. So it seems a little edgy, but it has structure to it, and you don't, you can't get there unless you do things over and over and over again.

Scott (40:27):

And I think that just having students do multiple sketches, multiple paintings, and then we put 'em up in critiques in front of people. And, you know, that's one of the funny things I've always thought about artists is, you know, we, we make these things in solitude and we pour our hearts out inside of them, and then we put 'em in front of everybody to be criticized. You know, it's kind of a funny process, but the, the critiques, you know, you, you have to build trust in your classmates and your faculty member that is gonna be beneficial. But the critiques really are helpful for someone to be able to digest things and to conceptualize things and understand where they should go from there. Because when you're just talking to yourself, eventually, you know, uh, you'll say, yeah, this is okay, because you're getting tired of doing it, and you'll be like, yeah, it's getting better, you know, it's getting better <laugh> and you didn't do anything, but you're, in your mind, you're thinking, oh, it looks better already because I'm tired.

Scott (41:21):

But it gets some fresh eyes from somebody else to look at and like, no, that's not working. You need go back and do something else. And you know, it funny how process works, because in first year classes, you know, students get upset about critiques, you know, because you're criticizing the things they, they consider very personal, but by the end of school, you know, when they're in their fourth year, they want tougher and tougher critiques. They're looking for that kind of reaction from people and feedback. And one, one of the things that I've, I've found in teaching creativity is the, the critique that we do really helps students do presentations and pitches, because the type of pitches and presentations they do in critiques aren't kind of like canned speeches. They're more interactive type things where they're wanting information. And so when you do that kind of a pitch, and like if you're doing a product pitch for a client, they really appreciate that kind of honesty and interaction when you present it like that, rather than saying, you know, this is the best thing ever. You know, I'm designed, your company is gonna increase by 300% if you use my idea or whatever. Instead of that, this is how it works, you know, this is, this is what I did, this is the attention, the, you know, I'm interested in your feedback so we can help this kind of move forward.

Keith (42:35):

This creative process you're describing just sounds like a lot of hard work. It sounds effortful, you're iterating, you're, you're sharing it with other people, you're going back and redoing it. It doesn't sound like it's always gonna be fun or that you'll always be in this, uh, flow state, right?

Scott (42:52):

Yeah, <laugh>, that's one of the funny things about creativity is it's hard work. You know, there's a lot of stuff that you have to do to get better, and students don't really understand that coming in. And I think people who wanna be more creative don't understand that it's work, but it really is. And you, if you just practice these things over time, you tend to get better at 'em. But if you're waiting for some kind of inspiration and you just wanna express yourself, you, you can do that, but you're not gonna be good at it and you're not gonna communicate well. And on the design side of things, when you have clients and stuff, they're not gonna be as happy with your designs if you're not, uh, using that iterative process.

Keith (43:32):

This is a great way to wrap up because I always like to end the interviews by asking you for some practical tips or advice for the listener that could enhance their creativity. And now I understand you think that there are lots of things that people can do to enhance their creativity. So yeah, could you give us just one something that listeners could do in the next week that might enhance their creativity?

Scott (43:54):

One of the things I, I really think that we don't do enough is we don't focus on the things we're bad at and we get better at 'em. One of the assignments I have that I use periodically in design thinking is to change your luck. And so I have students write down all the things they're unlucky at, and then what we do is we spend a week working on 'em and inevitably everybody becomes lucky, you know, it's just basically they didn't like it or they weren't, they didn't feel comfortable with it. But we strategize how to improve that. It's almost like a life hack. And so consciously coming up with more, you know, ho honestly to be, to be more creative, you gotta work on the divergent thinking part. You know, there's all these divergent thinking where you're coming up with more ideas and the convergent, uh, thinking where you're trying to select the best choices. Um, we're not very good at divergent thinking just because we haven't been taught that over time and working on that, making more lists, uh, synthesizing unlike ideas, things of that nature, and using, uh, systems to enable you to do that. 'cause it's kind of hard to do that on your own, but working on just producing more, that's what I say, just more is more. And eventually when you do a lot of more, there's gonna be more better in there somewhere.

Keith (45:10):

That's great advice. Scott, thank you so much for joining me today.

Scott (45:14):

Well, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed it. It is good to talk to you again.

Outro

Keith (45:28):

I think this was a great interview because Scott's an experienced artist and because he's been teaching an art school for 20 years, when you teach students how to be creative, you first have to reflect deeply on your own artistic process. When Scott teaches, he draws on insights from his own creative practice, but he's also a student of creativity research. And I think that's a powerful combination. When you can bring together your own creative process with the science of creativity, you get a richer understanding than just being a scientific researcher. That's why I went and interviewed art professors for my book learning to see, because I think they're incredibly articulate about teaching and learning for creativity. Thank you for listening to The Science of Creativity. If you liked this episode, I hope you'll subscribe to the podcast and please rate the show because that helps others like you hear about the show. Please write in the comments if you have requests or ideas for future episodes. I'll see you next time on The Science of Creativity for insights and inspiration about art, design and invention.