The Rise Of The Artist

"But in the next 50 years, those that excel in creativity-- big picture thinkers, artists, inventors,designers -- will rise to the top."

Let's ignore inventors (because unless you're inventing "the Snuggie", there's a very high chance you have an STEM background) and big picture thinkers (which is a meaningless term). The tone of the article suggests that the author is talking about art for arts sake (e.g. a band) and not design for a product i.e. industrial design or graphic design. If he is including products, who will actually create the products, now that all of the engineers are gone? If he is not including products, then for every million artists, only one will get meaningful recognition, as why would anyone consume less than the best content?

"The illiterates of the future will not be those who cannot read and write or code, but those who cannot connect the dots and imagine a constellation."

A constellation, and connecting dots? That's so uncreative! I hear the stars sing to me, and they tell me that I'm a big picture thinker.

"A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and 33 industries identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future (more than rigor, management discipline, integrity and even vision)."

Because of course, creativity in this context means ability to draw.

"Education and parenting should aim to provide the conventional skills (math, problem solving, and test taking skills) while also encouraging creative, out-of-the-box type thinking. Computers are no match for the average fourth-grader when it comes to creativity."

Again, is the author talking about creativity in the context of drawing, playing and instrument, etc, or "out-of-the-box" thinking? If it's the second, what does he think problem solving skills are? And what exactly does he think programming is?

"Instead of encouraging your child to major in engineering, you might encourage her to study philosophy, ask smart unsettling questions and practice making unusual and unexpected mental associations."

Yes, I've never heard of an scientist or engineer asking unsettling questions, or making mental associations.

"Albert Einstein said; I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious.”

Unfortunately, Einstein's background was in physics. So, while he was curious, he can't be considered to be creative. He should have studied philosophy instead.

Disclaimer: By writing the following I do not wish to discount the value of art (in its classic visual, musical, etc. forms) as an encouragement of creativity, or in general.

That said, it is a mistake to say that technical ("systems") capability is in any way contrary to creativity. In every art form, there is a technical prerequisite before expressing creativity. When a person learns how to draw or play an instrument (not to mention architecture, woodworking, product design, or programming), they grapple much more with the technical challenges in creating the image or sound that they imagine much more than with creativity. What facilitates creativity most is a mastery of techniques (craftsmanship) to the point that the technical is mainly subconscious. This is true of all of the above mentioned activities. Or another way to think about it is that technical incompetence can crush creativity and make people abandon projects that they would like to create.

(As a side note, I've actually been encouraged about the state of creativity in our culture by seeing that a lot of the people who are excited about programming have come to it in order to create, not in order to find technical solutions to technical problems.)

And drawing well really depends on your standards, the time you devote to the pursuit, and your dedication.

If you are past retirement age and want to achieve the technical proficiency of a DaVinci or Durer while painting on the weekends, then I'm sorry to tell you, but that's probably just not going to happen.

If you are young and incredibly dedicated, and devote a lot of time to it, maybe you can achieve something like that (on a purely technical level, though it arguably takes much more than this to achieve anywhere near as much on an artistic level above sheer technical skill).

For those of us with lesser ambitions, a lot can be achieved without becoming very technically proficient. There's a lot of satisfaction that can be had from emotionally stirring, but perhaps not technically perfect work.

This is a much more realistic goal. But it's still a difficult one because you have to get beyond completely cliched depictions (unless that's what you're aiming at), and achieve some sort of technical proficiency. This will likely take some time and effort, but should be achievable for most people who can devote sufficient time and effort to the pursuit, and not give in to discouragement.

And then there are the so-called "naive" and "art-brut" sort of artists, who may have no technical proficiency at all and yet make work that is satisfying to themselves and/or others. There, by definition, they have no training to speak of, but often make art through obsession, mental illness, or for a wide variety of other reasons.

Finally, there are the so-called "weekend painters", who work infrequently, at their leisure, and usually without extravagant aims or demands on themselves. They can also be quite pleased with their output, and often create just for the sheer joy of it, or with a very modest aim of achieving a little technical proficiency. This is quite doable and quite satisfying for many.

As others have said, find a great teacher.

I thought I was completely unskilled at drawing. Heck, stick figures were beyond my grasp. And then, by chance, I ran into an awesome teacher at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum Of Art). I went to his class to humor my partner - she's an artist and wanted me to learn more.

In the first class, we started sketching the human figure (based on a statue) - and the guy was good enough to make me understand what to do and how to get a realistic depiction. Now, granted, that is still miles from what any decent artist could do, but he made things click for me.

Reading a book won't do that for you. Find somebody who can teach you in person what drawing feels like. Who can, if necessary, take your hand and draw with you. Who can relate the ideas behind painting in a way that makes sense to you.

This talk of "right-brain" revolution has become so popular that no one even realizes the fundamental irony of it all. The fallacy that the "creative" arts have been under appreciated in society is the largest piece of bollocks I've ever heard. I voluntarily teach math at a school here in MN, so i get some insight into what's going on at the schools and the fact is, while the politicians and corporations are sounding off about STEM, at schools people are still talking more about funding "the arts". Before the rise of the "geek billionaires" guess the largest form of cultural philanthropy: "the arts" (probably still is). We have more people who graduate with degrees in dance than we do people who graduate with degrees in mathematics. Hollywood probably has more failed actors than the valley has failed entrepreneurs. We have more art and history museums than we have science and engineering museums. Unless you've made a lot of money and you've been on the cover of Forbes, or you put an autonomous vehicle on Mars while wearing a Mohawk, telling people you're a programmer/mathematician/scientist is more likely to get them to presumptuously assume you're some mechanistic robot than for them to say "wow, interesting stuff". This new wave of complaining about the lack of attention to "the creative arts" reminds me of that good old cultural phenomenon known as mansplaining. But these are "the arts" so I guess they're artsplaining (badum-bam)

That "left brain/right brain" business is the stupidest, most egregious display of a lack of understanding of basic neuroscience. It is a metaphor. You know, that thing the "creatives" love so much. it is a metaphor used to explain different psychological states. There is no physical hemispheric dominance (edit: with regard to how one thinks about things, not with regard to physical processes.), there are just ways of thinking. Those who examine things more deeply are said to be "left brained" and those who make connections at the high-level are said to be "right brained". It is not an excuse for why people suck at math or programming. It is not some genetic gift/curse only placed on a few people. As a matter of fact nobody is ever always right-brained/left-brained. People go with the mode of thinking they feel is appropriate for the situation. Besides STEM, analytical thinking is necessary in philosophy, literature, economics, sociology, and all other forms of the humanities, because they're not just a bunch of people sitting down, looking for the best way to jerk off their egos by saying the "deepest" thing (at least they're not supposed to be).

Second, this resurgence of math envy is merely a reflection of the fact that the importance of science and math are finally being recognized in society. So the author shouldn't get his panties in a bunch; no one is dragging the humanities down from it's privileged societal prestige. We simply don't have to scramble for answers to give to kids when they ask why all this algebra stuff is important. In reality, it's important in the same way history, literature, and civics is important: it's not. None of them are. Are you telling me high school history and civics left you with the propensity to be a more informed voter? Are you telling me you really genuinely explored the theme of revenge in Hamlet? Or did you just read the spark notes? Henry Ford couldn't read well and famously didn't know the date of the American Revolution, he still rose from a farm boy to becoming one of the richest men in this country (he was also a good engineer). STEM is important to know in the same way humanities and "creative arts" are important in that they are ways to help you understand the world. Simple as. The only difference is it's a lot harder to convince them that "physics is what powers your car" than it is to BS them about how history makes us a more informed society (seriously, have to taken a look out there? it's a freakin' jungle!)

Third, and most important. He's right. Don't learn to code, learn to draw. Fuck it, learn to ride a bicycle. Next week, I'm going to start swimming lessons - in my twenties! Our senseless push to get kids to learn to code is like this senseless hyper-aggrandizing of the "creatives". We should be teaching kids to learn to think. It's easy to do stuff. It's easy to train kids to learn some task for some as-at-yet determined future purpose. It's easy to code. It's easy to draw. What's hard is thinking, and that's where the creativity is. As a matter of fact, not only is the cultural perception of coding and math as more mechanistic in contrast with humanities and the "creative arts" wrong, the opposite is , in fact, the case. Anyone who has every learned a musical instrument and doesn't look back on it with rose-colored glasses can attest to the mechanistic heartlessness of the piano or the guitar. Drawing is merely the act of building a motor skill. So is dancing. But guess what, once you're done with the hours of torture to get good, then you realize the fun. When you come back from school and drop your bags and you bang out a perfect rendition of Chopin's Prelude No 4, then you truly understand the magnificence of the piano. Much in the same way, when you've crammed the ifs and elses, the fors and whiles, the variables and constants, the pointers and pointers to pointers, and pointers to functions, and pointers to pointers to pointers to functions, and then you go on to build that thingamabob or model that gene sequence or understand that earthquake, then you realize the true power of what you've been working with. So this false dichotomy of "creatives" and mechanistic science robots propped up by people who simply don't want to learn math and are mad that not knowing math and science is less of a badge of honor in society anymore misses the point. And while it reads nice (hey, it has nice fonts, man) and could be a nice rallying cry for people like him, what he should understand is that he is not defending creativity, he is defending ignorance. He is defending a one-seided traditional view of creativity - which is where the irony of his essay lies. And at the end of the day, the only true creativity is the one that comes out of understanding. That is a creativity a series of pretty pictures can never embody, only the artist, geneticist, programmer, linguist, or even the swimmer (did I mention I'm learning to swim? :) ) So to anyone else who feels a divide between their "creative arts" and "cold logical science" my advice: learn some science, then you can have an opinion of science. But hopefully after actually peeking in to see what it's about rather than making flawed generalizations based on traditional views of an emerging way of seeing the world, you would have learned a new way of looking at the world.