Creating Together
The entire world stands at the gateway to extraordinary potential. Potential to heal, potential to embrace new perspectives, and especially, potential to create a new future. During these waning pandemic months, and following an extended period of in-person social silence, it would be normal if you were to ask: ‘Since I’m not a creative type, what in the world could I possibly create?’ Part of the answer is beyond yourself, awaiting in the greater potential of collaborating with others. Those others are key to achieving what may, in the moment, seem impossible.
The essence of creative thought is connecting dots to see something in a way others have not, or even considered. In other words, creative ideas are ripe for picking seven days a week, across all four seasons, and at any time of the day or night by anyone. And though you may harbor grand aspirations, or petrifying doubt, it’s the group which makes ideas into reality. The idea person carries their personal observation and concept as a story into the community for several to hear, and from that initial inspiration often arises a whirlwind of pathways and techniques from which to build the concept.
I believe we are all creative, with the potential to discover something new and world-changing at most any time, even when asleep. It’s a matter of opening one’s eyes into an awakened state of mind while being open to possibilities, while being unafraid to let go of preconceived notions. Oh, and carrying a notepad to record those special moments which arise from out of nowhere when least expected. Personally, I use the Notes app within my iPhone iOS, which instantly transmits written iPhone screen scribbles and sketches to my studio laptop. I never run out of paper, and can have as many sections as can be imagined.
Often it’s the inspired individual clarifying their idea, plan, or solution who is placed on a pedestal to be declared a creative genius, when it was the group around them who actually brought the idea to fruition. Example: It’s interesting when I explain to a wide-eyed listener how a Disney theme park is created by tens of thousands of people across many years. The place doesn’t just appear the week before opening. It’s curious how we can cling to, then fantasize about, The Gifted One making it all happen in short order. Motion picture directors are occasionally placed in this category by those outside the feature production business. Take the pressure off yourself and look to others to help you create something you sense can ‘dent the universe,’ paraphrasing the late Steve Jobs.
History is filled with heralded creative geniuses, and since their stories are in the past, we assume they were somehow alone in their brilliance. Not true! Luminaries such as engineer/artist Leonardo Di Vinci, physicist/chemist Marie Curie, inventor/businessman Thomas Edison, and actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr had assistance from others, often many others. MGM Studios glamour icon Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-American co-inventor of secure frequency-hopping communication technology in the early years of World War II, had a development partner and several engineering friends.
Having grown up in central Europe, and later experiencing escalating insanities toward war, she was motivated to create something to help with the Allied effort while she was acting in films. After shooting sessions, lasting from early morning to evening six days a week, Hedy retreated to her studio bungalow to develop her own scientific ideas. Of those, one concept enabled U.S. Naval communications to evade Nazi interception while ensuring Allied torpedoes hit their target.
From left to right: Beautiful Hedy Lamarr on a 1930s tabloid cover, a page from her 1942-registered U.S. patent, and Hedwig Kiesler (real name) working in her MGM studio bungalow on the ideas engaging her imagination during long days amidst movie sets.
In our modern times, Ms. Lamarr’s wartime co-creation with avant-garde music composer George Antheil, (U.S. patent #2292387 for a “Secret communication system,” above), is at the core of WiFi, Bluetooth, CDMA, and GPS navigation systems. Your digital device carries a ‘bit’ of Hedy and George’s creative idea with each communiqué you send and receive. Unfortunately, most people remember the movie legend only for her beautiful silver screen appearances in films such as The Conspirators and Boom Town. She was so much more than what Hollywood portrayed her to be. A well-crafted reflection of Lamarr’s personal life, 30-film career, and world-influencing creation can be found in the documentary Bombshell, directed by Alexandra Dean.
On another artistic front, consider several renowned 17th century Dutch Masters: Johannes Vermeer, Abraham Bloemaert, and Rembrandt van Rijn, individual painters of light and near-perfect composition who applied to canvas talents the world had never seen. But let’s not leave out some equally talented female Dutch painters, such as Maria van Oosterwijck, Rachel Ruysch, and Judith Leyster. Together, all these oil-brushing geniuses formulated a new way of presenting the world to itself via art displayed in famous museum galleries around the globe.
From left to right: Paintings by 17th century Dutch oil masters Johannes Vermeer, Judith Leyster, Abraham Bloemaert, and Rachel Ruysch.
And now, for a revelation. Many of their visionary concepts may have been created by groups of artists, not solely by the Masters themselves.
Over the centuries, some galleries and art experts have kept mum about how an unknown number of Dutch paintings were actually created, likely because there was no behind-the-scenes documentation in the 1600s. In modern times, speculation has surfaced there may have been small groups of independently talented assistants directed by their namesake to complete works of art. Don’t recoil in horror, since this is essentially the same process applied in Hollywood to make movies. It’s believed backgrounds, flowers, clothing, even eyes and ears in some famous painted works were stroked in by specialists. It’s not unlike skilled French and German stone carvers who sculpted cathedral gargoyles and other dimensional architectural details their entire life, based on plans drawn by others. How could we ever imagine the church architect was out in the blistering sun every day chipping away? However, such belief has been common toward famous portrait and landscape painters.
Projected images of carefully staged human models and object arrangements may have been framed onto soon-to-be-famous canvases, realized through a technique known as camera obscura, together with flat, convex, and concave mirror configurations. The projected image was traced in great detail onto a stretched canvas, then painted over with oils. Subsequent artists such as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, and Jeff Koons didn’t hide the fact they had numerous assistants manufacturing works of art under their name, a precursor to today’s branded designers.
Does anyone think Michelangelo’s spectacular Sistine Chapel was painted exclusively by the Master of Florence? If that had been the case, he’d still be on his back on a scaffold just beneath the ceiling! The point in all of this is to understand and accept the vision of an idea can be envisioned by a lone individual, then born by many. And that’s alright, alleviating pressure on the idea creator.
Today, after more than a year of our lives shifting in substantial, sometimes career-altering ways, we possess fresh perspectives and ideas to change our world for the better, just as inventors, businesspeople, and artists have done before us. First, however, we must regain the confidence of a brighter future, perhaps channeling some post-World War II mindset, a time in history when so many amazing ideas, perspectives and creations appeared from out of a grim, fear-laden darkness.
It’s no wonder the 1950s became a dynamic chapter of seeking, experimentation, understanding, and excitement about things to come. Elvis Presley, Billie Holiday, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Miles Davis emerged with new musical ideas. Walt Disney’s Happiest Place On Earth® rose out of sun-drenched orange groves in Anaheim, California during the summer of 1955, smack in the middle of post-war growth and prosperity. Baby Boomers were born, and the Space Race to the moon began.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so we may fear less.” –Marie Curie (1867-1934)
With understanding comes newfound inspiration to learn toward the manifestation of fresh ideas. Many of us seek to embark in new directions as 2021 evolves. Through interconnected groups in neighborhoods, towns, across countries, and around the world, we can envision the unforeseen, just as pulp science fiction illustrators portrayed 1950s future visions with adventurous portrayals of alien planets, flying cars, and sleek, clean energy-powered cities.
In case you weren’t around in the 1950s, here are some of the decade’s fearless ideas, inventions, and accomplishments which generated various degrees of influence on today’s world:
1950 – The first credit card, originally made of simple cardboard (Diner’s Club)
1951 – The first video tape recorder, an idea suggested to audio recording engineers by singer Bing Crosby
1952 – Barcode patent issued, initiated by a grocery store chain president
1953 – The first music synthesizer: the tape-based Phonogène (pre-Mellotron)
1954 – A British epidemiologist publishes the first paper on the health risks of asbestos
1955 – The first wireless remote for television, the Flashmatic, was born
1956 – The first computer hard disk (stack) had a capacity of 3.75 MB, the size of an average MP-3 song
1957 – Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite is launched into Earth orbit from Russia
1958 – The first laser flashed a ruby-red beam for a split second, and no one knew what do with it
1959 – The first microchip was hand built by Robert Noyce (Intel co-founder), and others
Chromatic Phonogène (1953)
The world’s first audio synthesizer bent music notes and sounds with its multi-head magnetic tape mechanism. Three models were made: Chromatic, Sliding, and Universal (1963).
The potential to imagine and create our future is unique to humans, a privilege we must never squander. While it may seem everything has already been invented, consider how many things still bother you every day. Each annoyance yearns for a solution. Share your frustrations in constructive ways with those who can help you resolve them. If you want an idea to make your life better, others will too. They’re called customers.
Some may say “Necessity is the mother of invention,” while I’ve scribed in my quotation database “Art, war, and inventions are born from misinterpretation.“ The moment one sees something from a new perspective, a fresh idea may appear.
Why not give this concept a chance to percolate in your own realm: Drive to work on a different road. Surprise a long lost friend with a phone call (not an email, tweet, or Facebook message). Book a flight to a place you’ve always wanted to explore. Eat a food you’ve never tasted. Listen to a musical artist you know nothing about. Observe your town or city from the rooftop of a tall building, out in the open, without a guardrail. Feel the winds of change in your face!
Once you try this simple technique of altering preconceived notions, you’ll probably want to do it again. Afterward, remember to share your creative, dot-connecting thoughts with others so change can begin, because you know what? The future for you and the world just came a little more into focus.
For additional information detailing how some Dutch Masters may have set up their paintings before oils touched the canvas, contemporary inventor Tim Jenison has created the video Tim's Vermeer.
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