July 28, 2025 • 53 mins
Creativity isn't just a nice-to-have skill—it's as essential as oxygen, water, and food for meaningful human existence. Artist Patrick Williams draws from decades of experience to reveal how our natural creative abilities become "colonized" as we grow up, often leading to what he calls "creative collapse" in various domains of expression.
Patrick's journey from a child doodling on church bulletins to a professional artist offers profound insights into the resilience of creativity. He shares the pivotal moment when losing beloved woods near his childhood home channeled his grief into artistic expression, forever cementing creativity as his lifeline. His story reminds us that even when creativity seems lost, it's merely buried beneath layers of conditioning—waiting to be rediscovered.
The conversation takes a thought-provoking turn as Patrick examines how technology impacts creativity, particularly for children. He argues that screens interrupt the "undirected, unrestricted, free-form discovery" that constitutes genuine play—the primary way humans learn at any age. While acknowledging AI's utility, he maintains it fundamentally lacks the intuitive, non-algorithmic quality of human creativity, challenging us to preserve what makes us uniquely human.
Perhaps most encouraging is Patrick's affirmation that our creative abilities can never truly vanish: "Remember those times when you were four, five, and six years old and you knew exactly how to be creative effortlessly? You still have that inside you." His perspective invites us to reconnect with our authentic creative selves, not just to make art, but to reclaim our full humanity and engage with the world in a more vibrant, connected way.
Ready to uncover your buried creative superpowers? Listen now and remember what it feels like to create with the freedom and joy of your childhood self.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
One of the main things that I always want to say
to people that remember thatthose times when you were four,
five and six years old and youknew exactly how to be creative
effortlessly you still have thatinside you yes it can't go
(00:31):
anywhere.
How could it go somewhere?
It's not if people feel like oh, I've lost it, you've just
misplaced it you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
You've buried it underneath.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Buried it, yeah, it's there, it's there, it's always
there.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hey, it's Maddox, and I'm here with my co-host,
dwight, and we are theConnections and Community Guys.
And yes, of course, you'relistening to the For the Love of
Creatives podcast.
Today, our featured guest isPatrick Williams, and we're
excited to have him on todaybecause we've read a little bit
(01:17):
about his bio and seems like hehas an absolutely fascinating
story and we believe he's goingto impart some real wisdom.
So, patrick, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Happy to be here.
Thanks, Maddox, Thanks Dwight.
Glad to have you, glad to haveyou.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So I'm going to turn it over to you and let you tell
the audience a little bit aboutyou.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Sure, thank you.
I'm Patrick Williams.
I'm a lifelong artist.
I've had many hats, includingthis one, throughout my life.
As most artists, most peopleinto creatives, are people with
many backgrounds, so to speak,and many avenues.
(02:01):
I've driven a school bus.
I taught ice skating when I wasin high school not for money,
though, it was purely as acommunity service, so to speak.
Let's see, I was self-taught.
I taught myself how to draw andpaint at home and then went off
(02:27):
to college and got a BFA inpainting.
I had a wild, crazy, amazingpainting professor named Richard
Tricky.
He is no longer on this planet,as far as I know, longer on
this planet, as far as I knowand he was a major person in my
(02:48):
life to accelerate my vision anddrive and passion.
He gave me a studio when I wasa sophomore undergraduate, which
is essentially unheard of whenthere were graduate students on
a waiting list.
So he saw something in me andit was very powerful.
(03:12):
After college I had, like Isaid, many jobs.
I've worked in daycare andcommunity centers and I've done
private.
I was a painter of houses also.
Lots of artistic visual artistsalso have had backgrounds in
(03:34):
painting interiors and exteriorsof houses.
One way, one thing is that wecould do it faster than most
other people because we'repainting all the time.
That's my theory of why thathappens, and in some ways it's
easy for us to paint.
So I did that.
(03:56):
I got married later in life.
My wife and I met in 1999 at ashow I was having in Omaha,
nebraska, which is we're livingback here now.
And then we started a nonprofitwe've had for 25 years now,
called Satori Institute.
(04:16):
It's an arts education,investigative, journalist,
healing, research Organizationand we've gone through all that.
That organization has had manyincarnations, so to speak, as
we've been indifferent.
We've lived in Chicago foryears and and then in Boulder
for years and now we're here inOmaha.
(04:38):
What else?
I've made a lot of paintings inmy life.
I've always had a studiowherever I've lived, so that has
been a constant.
I'm passionate about drawingalso and art history, and that
(04:59):
maybe sums up the skimming ofstone across the pond of my life
.
That's a little snippet of whoI am.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, it's great.
I can't wait to dive in alittle bit deeper.
Sure, why don't you tell us howit all got started?
I mean that very, very I know,as I read a little bit of your
stuff.
You talk about how childrencome into the world with the
superpower of creativity.
When did you discover yoursuperpower?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I felt like I always knew aboutit, specifically about drawing.
You know, when we're little wehave crayons and pencils and I
was always doodling and drawing.
(05:50):
My wife and I just had aconversation about going to
church and the two things Iremember as a little boy of
being in church is the paintingon the wall of this little tiny
Methodist brick building churchin Omaha, nebraska, and drawing
(06:13):
in the whatever that's calledthe schedule for the day for the
service.
So I would just draw everywhereon those things and I kind of
wish my mom would have kept allthose.
It would have been a cool showto have dozens and dozens of
these little drawings that I didon those little pamphlets that
(06:37):
were given out every Sunday theschedule of what hymns we're
going to read and when we'regoing to do whatever we're
supposed to be doing during theSunday sermon.
I agree, that would have beenway cool.
Yeah, yeah, super cool.
I can remember them in a way ofwhat was kind of going through
(06:58):
my head.
But back to the subject.
I was drawing all the time andthen in the TEDx talk I tell the
story of how those two thingsin my life really came together
and it wasn't until I wasaccepted to do the talk, when I
(07:18):
was thinking I would tell twostories to people.
I would tell stories about howI started drawing around age 10,
but then I would tell anotherstory about what happened with
my woods.
And and it wasn't until Istarted writing the TEDx talk
(07:39):
that I realized oh that's, theywere integral.
One one spark literally sparkedthe other, that I had to put
all that, that grief and thatsorrow and that heartache of
losing those trees, intosomething.
And the blessing was that I haddrawing to put it into.
(08:02):
So after that point I reallystarted focusing at looking at
something and attempting to drawit.
We had whatever I was using forpaper you know, probably typing
paper back in the day.
The two of you know totallywhat I'm talking about.
Sometimes I'm with youngerfolks.
(08:23):
They're like typing paper.
So I would you know totallywhat I'm talking about.
Sometimes I'm with youngerfolks.
They're like typing paper.
So I would you know, havetyping paper and number two
pencils or my crayons, andthat's what I would.
I was constantly trying tofigure out how to make things
appear on a piece of paper asthey appeared on the table or
whatever I was looking at, andthen also in school, I was
(08:48):
always drawing.
I was making up characters andanimals.
I was into dinosaurs, of course, like so many of us were, and I
would give these creatures aLatin-sounding name.
So I was exploring all kinds ofimaginal directions as a kid,
(09:14):
as a young kid, from 10 until Istarted painting about 14 or 15.
I made my first stretchedcanvas at 15, I made my first
stretched canvas at 15 and thenit just accelerated from there.
I made 20 or 30 paintings inhigh school that were 30 by 40
(09:38):
inches and some 6 feet by 3 feet.
So they were unusual adventures, creatively, for a teenager.
Usually, when someone startspainting, even as an adult,
they'll pick, you know, like aneight and a half by 11 canvas to
(09:59):
work on, or maybe 10 by 12 orwhatever.
It's a.
It's a.
It's usually an incrementalbaby step, baby step process,
but I just dove in, you know,once I the.
I just didn't have that, thatuh ceiling for myself with
(10:19):
respect to what I could do forsome reason.
Uh, I could do for some reason.
It's a blessing for sure.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I just I kept, I just never stopped from that
early age.
Yeah, it sounds like you had alot of encouragement with the
artistic pursuits.
I mean the path from drawing onthe programs at church to
having access to be able to workwith these large canvases, to
(10:55):
getting the BFA.
I mean your experience soundsquite unusual.
What did you have, or who didyou have, that was encouraging
these pursuits, when the morecommon story that we seem to
hear is that people are told bytheir parents and caregivers
(11:16):
that they need to do somethingvery practical?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, well, I certainly got the practical talk
, but my mom was veryencouraging.
She supplied me with drawingpads and we had number two
(11:45):
pencils everywhere, so Ireceived the bare minimum, but
that was enough to keep my sparkgoing.
And then in sixth grade I hadan experience with right off the
bat.
In sixth grade we moved fromelementary school to the junior
(12:06):
high school in sixth grade and Ithink it was the first year
they tried that in our schoolsystem back in the day.
And when that started, there wasan after-school program called
Challenge and literally all myfriends were in Challenge and I
(12:27):
wanted to be in challenge and Ifinally got up the nerve to ask
my teacher I want to be inchallenge, how can that happen?
And she said, well, you can'tbe in challenge.
That's only for the gifted kidsand they get all good grades
and your grades aren't too hot.
You know they're, they're,you're in the lowest reading
(12:48):
group and the lowest, uh, mathgroup.
And I said, well, I want to bein challenge.
You know, I had it was like oneI had one direction that I
wanted to go and it was to bewith my friends, because they
were telling me all these coolthings that they were doing.
They were going on field trips,they were watching
documentaries, it was.
I wanted to do that and shesaid, well, I don't think that's
(13:11):
really possible.
And then I, you know, I wasjust persistent and then, yeah,
it was, it was amazing.
uh, I was super shy when I waslittle and she said, well, you
would have to get better inevery subject.
And I said, okay, how do I dothat?
And she said, well, you'd haveto study.
(13:32):
And I said, well, how do you dothat?
And before that I was notinterested in school much at all
, except they supplied me withmanila paper and crayons.
I could draw that's pretty muchor be outside that's, those
were my two interests.
So she told me how to how tostudy and how to bring my grades
(13:53):
up, and I applied myself andwithin like two or three weeks,
you know, I was getting ahundred on spelling and a
hundred on social studies and Ihad jumped into the highest math
group and the highest readinggroup, and so I got into
challenge and what was funny?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
She lit a fire under your ass, didn't she?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, totally.
It was two fires.
I had a fire and she was like,okay, if you want to do this,
here's how to do it.
And I don't think she thoughtthat I was going to be able to
do something like that.
But what was interesting is thatonce I got into the class I
realized that these are my triberight, and part of it was that
(14:39):
my mother had, and part of itwas that my mother had, we had
my best friend's father had.
He always had some side jobgoing on.
And that year you know it was acouple years before I was in
sixth grade he sold us a WorldBook Encyclopedia set and it was
(15:08):
like, oh, I love it.
I would just pick up one of theletters and flip through it and
just read all kinds of amazingthings.
So it wasn't until I was inchallenge that I realized that
all of that time I spent with,you know, letter A or letter F
or whatever was adding to mythis knowledge that I didn't
really think I I had.
But it was so useful amongstthe my tribe, so to speak.
(15:33):
And it wasn't until then that II had this, uh, awareness that
there was a an intellectual sideof of being on the planet.
You know, for me it was justart and play, which is, you know
, in some ways, what I do now.
But there's also this it justturned on a switch for me that I
(15:55):
started thinking about thingsand reading more thoroughly and
paying attention to how thingswork, how relationships work.
It was a vital part of mydevelopment.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
It all sounds very serendipitous.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
It does.
But there's a through line thatis so remarkable and we can't
see it necessarily until we'rein the moment and we have that
choice.
And somehow for me right now, Ithink back at who I was when I
(16:36):
was whatever 11, in sixth grade,somewhere in there, somewhere
in there, uh, what, what, whatfire did I connect with?
That got me up in front of theteacher during lunch.
You know, all the other kidswere at lunch and I was just.
I stood, I was, I'm sure I wasnervous as a saw hell, but yeah,
(16:57):
that was.
It just clicked, that's great.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
that really blows me away is that you found your
tribe at such an early age.
Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You're so blessed, I feel, feel blessed yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, you know it's funny as you.
You talk about that, thatprocess of curiosity.
I'm thinking the the equivalenttoday would be for a young
person who went to the randompage on Wikipedia.
You know it has a feature whereyou can just show me something
random, totally.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Or the sense of.
I remember when Wikipedia cameout and I was speaking to a,
he's a millennial or maybe alittle older, whatever, whatever
we call generation X, maybe isthat before millennials but he
said okay.
(17:56):
He said I just Wikipedia isamazing, I just lose myself
inside of it for hours.
And that's exactly.
You were totally correct, right?
That's exactly what I did withthe analog version of Wikipedia.
You know the actualencyclopedia.
I would just get lost in it.
(18:17):
I'd get lost in the dictionary.
I would ask my mom for you knowwhat does this word mean?
And she said go look it up.
I said I don't want to look itup, I know, you know what does
this word mean?
And she said go look it up.
I said I don't want to look itup, I know, you know what it
means.
And she said you'll remember itbetter if you go look it up.
And I'd go look it up and thenI'd get, I'd discover all kinds
of words and flip the page andjust totally ran in the
(18:38):
serendipitous quality of whatcreativity really is.
It is a large part of bumpinginto things and being amazed
Like wow, that's super cool, Inever thought of that before.
And then that often links tosomething that you're working on
(19:01):
.
You're working on, yeah,whether it's, whether it's an
artistic piece or or somethingfor a career or a job, or or a
relationship, whatever it mightbe, but that's how that's.
One of the blessings ofcreativity is that we're our
curiosity nudges us indirections that help help.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
There's lots of overlap.
Totally, I've just been, reallyrecently, broadened into an
understanding of creativity thatI didn't have.
You know, I've been creativeall my life not incredibly
artistic, I mean, I coulddecorate the house for Christmas
, you know.
Or I was in the beauty industryfor 40 years makeup artist,
hairdresser, colorist, wardrobebut I've just come to realize
(19:55):
that creativity, I mean it is inevery breath that we take
Absolutely.
In every breath that we takeAbsolutely.
You know, I've come to really,really appreciate how we get to
create our life any way we wantto create it.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right Totally.
It's like an ongoing piece ofart.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
It is like an ongoing no-transcript creating my life
(20:45):
until just recently.
It's just like the dots gotconnected in a way that just
kind of you know, wow, I justsee it from a different
perspective now and now, my God,creativity is not some
frivolous thing that we get theprivilege of doing, it's like a
necessary it's like a necessary,it's like friggin oxygen.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
No, totally, yeah, I, I, I put it with the, exactly
that oxygen, uh, water, food andcreativity, you know we need,
you know, with whatever theother ones are clothing, uh, a
dwelling, the necessities, you,the absolute necessities of life
.
I mean, in some ways we livedfor millennia without a house or
home.
But well, we had a home, but wedidn't have a house.
(21:39):
Or we had a cave, maybe a cave,I, I, I'm not sure about that.
I know we did hang out in caves, but I think we did other
things too to make a home.
But anyway, so I, creativity isan essential to living and we,
we do it.
We, I, I have divided it upinto a general creativity,
(22:05):
conventional creativity andspecialized creativity.
So we do.
General creativity is when Ichose this shirt, you know, two
hours ago, to have for thepodcast.
You know, those are little tinycreative acts and, maddox, you
were describing something thatis, I think.
And, maddox, you weredescribing something that is, I
(22:28):
think even it's betweenconventional and specialized,
when you were talking about hair, makeup, costuming.
All of those things are, Iwould say, more in the
(22:54):
specialized area of creativitythan in the conventional.
Conventional, for me is how anengineer is creative in
designing and building a bridge,or when people are coming up
with their ideas.
How to when?
When the two of you wereconceiving of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You were using general creativity and a lot of
conventional creativity that wehave access to as human beings
all the time.
One of my favorite examples, ofwhich I want to thank you're
talking about conventionalcreativity is, I always
laughingly say, I have thisreally special way that I fold
the potato chip bag down so thechips stay fresh, and it was a
form of creativity for me.
I really spent time playingwith the bag until I found,
(23:42):
rolling it down, a way that theystay fresh for an extended
period of time and peoplechuckle when I say that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's true, and that's a perfect example of how we're
able to tap into the spectrum ofcreativity that goes all the
way from just the tiniestcreative spark all the way up to
the conflagration of total,amazing creative energies.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I'm going to turn my other monitor on for a quick
second, because there wassomething else that I saw in
your profile that I wanted toask about.
This puts a lot of bright lighton my face, so I'll turn it
right off.
Two other terms that I wouldlove to hear a little bit more
about.
One of them was creativecolonization and the other one
was creative collapse.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, those are.
So I started.
I started working on amanuscript more years ago than I
want to admit that it's slowlygetting there Within the idea of
writing about creativity.
I sat with myself and reflectedon everything that I could tune
(25:03):
into what I knew aboutcreativity, into what I knew
about creativity from the, thenatural qualities that I had
when I was, you know, three,four or five years old, that we
all have, and then the whatcaused me to stick with it.
(25:25):
When I saw I worked ineducation for a lot of years
specifically with the arts, andI could see how some children
kept going and some childrenstopped.
Some children had the glasshalf full, so to speak, of their
(25:48):
creative.
Some kids it was full andoverflowing.
Some kids the glass was empty.
But that was very curious to me.
So after a lot of contemplationI came up with creative
colonization, which means we areall natural in how we relate to
(26:15):
creativity from when we'rechildren.
Children, there's no off switchon creativity for them.
They are no questioning iteither.
(26:43):
One person sort of says well, Iam.
Colonization is what happens inbetween.
It's when our natural creativenature is slowly pulled away
(27:04):
from us and other things are putin its place, as in a culture
where a colonizer comes in andintroduces new language, new
rituals, new religions, newbooks, whatever it might be.
(27:28):
A whole new culture is pushedonto, the people being colonized
, and I believe it's the sameway with children.
With respect to creativity,it's pushed out.
It's a really strongdescription, but I think it
really gets people to payattention that we were all in
(27:53):
different ways colonized withrespect to our creativity.
Some of it is instrumental ormusical, vocal colonization,
some of it is writing, some ofit's reading, some of it's
singing.
I said that.
(28:13):
Some of it's visual arts, soit's not just one For me.
I was strong, I didn't lose, Iwasn't colonized visually in my
visual arts, but I was colonizedwith respect to music.
I had no idea and I wasterrified of music.
I love music now, but I had togo through my restoration of
(28:38):
that later on in my life.
So creative colonization happensat home, in school situations,
situations and in the wide worldin, and it can be at different
levels and and the colonizationcan be, can be direct or
(29:01):
indirect, so it literally can besomeone a teacher or a parent
or a relative or somebody in aclass that you're taking in the
community that says that's nothow you draw a tree, from an
(29:24):
adult who has their owncolonization and collapse and is
being triggered by a little kidthat has drawn a really great
looking tree.
But something comes out andthat's malicious.
Sometimes it's innocent, it'slike maybe that's not how to
draw a house or a fence or abird or whatever it might be,
(29:47):
but the child takes that reallyintensely, it makes an
impression on them and afterenough impressions then a kind
of collapse happens.
That's why I call it creativecollapse.
The music for me just collapsedthat.
The music for me just collapsedAfter third grade with those
(30:12):
little flutes, the whatever Ican't think of the name
Recorders.
Yeah, the recorders.
I had no idea I was barely, Iwas just trying to, I was still
figuring out the alphabet andhow to read.
Yeah, and when she put theteacher put up the scale and
started drawing the notes, likewhat is going on, and those
(30:35):
notes were connected to myfingers and a sound.
I was not ready for that right.
So I just collapsed.
But with art, with visual arts,I never lost it.
I was always filling my glassup more and more and more and
more.
So creative collapse happenswhen an event it could be a
(30:55):
specific moment when a teachersays you can your heart and you
reconnect with it.
In between, that moment whenour hearts are reopened and we
(31:17):
restore our creativity aftercreative collapse, I call that
the creative void, and that maylast a week, a month, a year.
It may last a week a month, ayear, or it might last from
third grade until someone is 95.
And they have a very specialmoment and say you know what?
(31:40):
I'm going to pick up my guitaragain.
I haven't picked it up since Iwas 12, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
And they start playing guitar again, and for
some people, that collapse maynever be something they recover
from.
They just repeat the same dayover and over, until one day
they die of a heart attack.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Exactly, yeah, and, and that I think that that is
very well put, dwight, that Ifeel in my TEDx talk I call it
the splinter in our soul, uh,which is also a very, uh,
intense imagery or metaphor, butthat's what?
What?
How deeply I feel the removalor the disconnection that
(32:27):
happens to children with respectto their creativity.
That is how intense it is andto what you said, that is
damaging to our hearts.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Oh, yes, yes.
And everybody I talk to feel it.
Oh yes, oh yes.
I have a question aboutcolonization.
I'm reflecting back on my ownchildhood and remembering.
You know, we were not poor whenI was a child, but we weren't
rich either, and so we had touse our imaginations.
(33:03):
I can remember mom giving me abath towel and a clothespin and
I made a superhero cape.
She gave me an old ivory liquidsoap bottle and that was my
squirt gun.
There were all kinds of thingsI used to.
Hot wheels were a big thingwhen I was a kid and I had a
(33:25):
handful of Hot Wheels and Iwould draw entire cities on the
driveway and the sidewalk whereI could drive my cars, my Hot
Wheels, around.
I just wonder I guess myquestion is well, more
statements before my question.
I would frigging hate to be achild today.
I'm so glad I got to be a childwhen I got to be a child,
(33:48):
because here comes the question,part of it Do you think that
technology and screens anddevices has played a role in
that colonization?
Because kids don't.
They don't A we're moreaffluent now as a population, so
they don't have to really makethings.
(34:09):
They can buy things.
They don't have to have thetowel and the clothespin,
because they can just go buy asuper cape.
I'd love to know your thoughtson that.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Oh, yeah, for sure I have a lot of thoughts on that.
Yes, love to know your thoughtson that.
Oh, yeah, for sure I have a lotof thoughts on that.
Yes, the, it's a new kind ofcolonization, I think so we're.
We're experiencing well, the,the, the research is had.
The research on television andthe effects of it on children
(34:46):
started in the 1940s.
Literally there were folksdoing, there were educators,
there were academic folks ineducation departments that knew
this new thing, television,could be damaging to children's
development.
And sure enough they found thatin the 40s and 50s that time
(35:12):
spent watching television islimiting children's ability to
develop or changing theirability to develop.
And this was found both.
It was found linguistically, itwas found visually.
It was found linguistically, itwas found visually, it was
(35:37):
found motor sensory, on alllevels of child development, on
brain development.
Once, once they started doingbrain scans you know whatever
year that started, they startedseeing how children were being
changed by whatever amount oftime that they were watching
television.
So now we have these screenseverywhere, so they're
(36:00):
completely interrupting play.
I would, if a parent asked me,if they just straight up said
should I go out and buy my kid aSuperman outfit?
So they can, you know, go.
And I said, no, just go home,get some clothespins, get a
towel and let them go.
(36:21):
That is what real play is about.
It's undirected, unrestricted,free-form discovery.
That's what play is and that isthe only way and this will
(36:41):
sound wild it is the only waythat human beings learn, not
just children.
Every single one of us, nomatter how old, we learn through
play.
The play looks different whenwe're above the age of 10 or 15
(37:02):
or 20, but we're also.
We have those moments in ourlife that we are goofy and silly
and pretending, and that'splayful and we know it's very
much like how we were when wewere children and in those
moments we're exploring things.
(37:24):
As an example, when childrenplay, make-believe whatever that
might look like when they're,whatever that might look like,
they're playing house.
You know, I'm mom, I'm dad, youknow, here are the kids.
They're literally inventingways in which they relate to
(37:46):
each other and the play isteaching them how to relate, how
to use their imaginations, howto reflect on.
What does mom do?
What does dad do?
What does my older sister do?
What does the mail carrier do?
I'm going to be the mailcarrier.
You be the whatever, whateverthe play might be, they're,
(38:10):
they're discoveringrelationships, but they're also
creating situations which theycan.
They're.
They're new and curiousopportunities to draw, to try
this out or to try that out.
So make believe is superimportant.
Play is our form of learning.
(38:32):
We also are able to rememberthings within the educational
system that I don't necessarilycall learning with a capital L,
but it's learning with alowercase l or just rote
memorization, and all three ofus have been through that, you
(38:56):
know, especially years and yearsago.
Yeah, we had, we had all kindsof uh exercises and a
memorization of themultiplication tables or
whatever it might be.
So so we can, we can packinformation into our minds to be
able to regurgitate it, butthat I don't believe that is
(39:19):
actual learning.
Learning is something that onceyou learn it, you know it
forever.
You never, ever forget how.
I do not I, I, I will alwaysknow how to use a pencil.
It's not like but, but the, uh,the.
(39:40):
I'm trying to think of somethingobtuse.
You know, there is some math Iwould have to really work on
doing a whole bunch of binomialequations right now.
You know I'd have to sit withthem and like, okay, I remember
doing this, but I think I wasforcing myself, just like the
(40:00):
instruction was forcing us, tomemorize these qualities.
Now, someone who didn't have amathematical collapse would be
like oh, I can do tensorcalculus and I can do any level
of algebra or geometry orwhatever it might be.
So my point is that I'm tryingto get back to the core of the
(40:25):
question.
Maddox, the hour it wasinvolved with play, I can't
remember where.
Where did we start, maddox?
What was the Well?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I'll just give my take on what you've said and
draws back to an earlier point.
Play is essential, like it's apart of who we're being and
something that I was pulling onwhen you were talking earlier
about how it's essential that wecreate.
(40:58):
I see how they're related andwhat.
What was burned at the front ofmy mind was how we're
challenging the Maslow'shierarchy of needs right.
Challenging the maslow'shierarchy of needs right.
Like we need to rewrite that,because actualization is not
something that goes at the topof the pyramid.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Creativity is something that needs to be
sprinkled throughout absolutely,I totally agree, you know I
don't think children are arereally given the opportunity to
use their imaginations the waywe were when we were kids.
True, because it's provided,now We've got AI, that we can
say create a picture for me ofwhatever Steal a picture.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah.
It's just like yeah, ai is a.
I'm actually doing a podcastnext week with someone who I've
done other podcasts with, but itis a podcast about AI and he
has no idea he probably he maynever have me on again.
(42:06):
I am, ai is a tool and it's a.
It's a.
It's a dumb program thatimpresses people with how
quickly it can do some actions,but it is not creative, it
cannot be creative and it neverwill be creative.
It's creativity is a nonalgorithmic function.
(42:29):
Yes, creativity is us bumpinginto things.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
it's a deeply intuitive, intuitive process
yeah, absolutely, I does nothave intuition I I think it's
great for lots of things.
Yeah, totally yeah, um, butthere's certainly a lot of
things that I wouldn't dream ofusing it for, because it would
rob me of my imagination and mycreative process.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Exactly, that's true.
And back to that made me thinkof talking about the screens and
how that is very, verydisruptive to children's
development brain development,relational development,
relational development,communicating development,
(43:17):
community development and itrobs them of play and
imagination and curiosity andtheir creativity.
So I encourage any parent withchildren to limit, extensively,
limit, any time on the screen.
(43:38):
It's not good and the light,the blue light, is horrible.
It's a horrible.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Not to be too controversial, but I would go a
step further and say that anytime that you have screened as
babysitter, where everything isprepackaged and we've got the
children being indoctrinated bywhat they're seeing, it not only
kills their imagination, italso cripples them when it comes
(44:12):
to being able to deploycritical thinking.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Totally, absolutely, and I loved, before we started
recording, how open the two ofyou are to having a conversation
that goes anywhere.
Having a conversation that goesanywhere and that is essential
(44:41):
for us as human beings.
It's part of how we, as adults,play in the intellectual realm
of who we are and how wediscover who other people are.
If we're not able to disagreeon whatever anything might be,
that is unhealthy for us as acommunity.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
It is so important.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I disagree with myself all the time, so it's
totally okay for me to disagreewith with others or with
everybody else in the world.
It it.
It helps us understand who weare and who everybody else is.
So and the screen often robs usof that and and especially
(45:28):
within the realm of Twitter orthat, you hide behind a icon
that is not you and that givesyou supposedly the liberty to
say anything about anything, butwe don't know who that is.
(45:50):
It could be a robot, it couldbe a bot, it could be some ai,
you know, just trying to adjustthe, the algorithm.
So it it.
It's just mind-boggling how howmuch we need to get you know.
It's funny because we werehearing it when we were kids get
(46:11):
back to nature.
There was all that kind of senseof how things were getting too
crazy and too machined, and thisgoes back all the way to the
end of the 1800s, whenindustrialization was really
(46:31):
pumping up, whenindustrialization was really
pumping up, and we saw thisinflux of a dystopian worldview
that has just kept going, andwe're at a point now that I
think it's great, though I haveto say that I believe this
(46:51):
so-called AI is assisting us inreconnecting with our humanness
and reconnecting to authenticcommunity right.
So it's what the two of you aredoing, and what I'm blessed to
do with you right now isinteract is play.
(47:13):
Have a playful conversation,have a curious conversation,
have a creative conversationabout what we're seeing in the
world and how we're able to usewhere we've been when we were
five years old and 10 years oldand 15 and how different the
world is now and assisting youngfolks in the wisdom that we
(47:40):
have that can help them withwhat they're struggling with.
The screen is definitely astruggle.
Right now, kids are addictedparents, children, adults
struggle.
Right now, kids are addictedParents, children, adults
everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
So many people are addicted to the screen.
Patrick, your words are soaffirming and I just want to say
thank you for that.
You know, we don't really knowwhere any of these conversations
go when we start, and that'sthe joy of it Totally.
I mean, I feel like we're aboutout of time and I feel like we
could barely scratch the surface, because I feel like there's
(48:16):
just so much more we could talkabout and so much more that I
would love to know about you andyour process, and I think that
what we have unpacked today hasjust been amazing.
Oh good, the time flew bybecause I just was just enjoying
the conversation so much.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Super Maddox.
Thank you, I'd love to hearthat we should be open to
picking it up again sometime.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I would be happy to.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
We may need to do a part two because, like I say, I
don't think we've scratched thesurface yet.
Yeah, need to do a part twobecause, like I say, I don't
think we've scratched thesurface yet.
Yeah, but gosh.
I just want to say that my mindand my perspective has been
expanded in ways that you haveshared, all you've shared.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Excellent and, on that note, remember this is,
this is one of.
This is pretty much one of themain things that I I always want
to say to people that rememberthat that those times when you
were five, four, five and sixyears old and you knew exactly
(49:32):
how to be creative effortlessly,you still have that inside you.
It can't go anywhere.
How could it go somewhere?
People feel like, oh, I've lostit, you've just misplaced it.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
You've buried it underneath a bunch of crap.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
It's there, it's always there oh, patrick, you
are in great company, becauseI'm reminded of the wise words
of robert green and mastery,yeah, as he describes the, the
life of leonardo da vinci andall the other luminaries in that
book.
And uh, well, even, um, youknow, to get contemporary, um
(50:15):
chase jarvis and uh, never playit safe.
You know, yeah, play is was oneof the seven levers of
creativity, totally absolutely,yep, yep, super important.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, we and it's, it's human the children get it
and old people get it it's allthe people in between that,
right, yeah?
And I've got.
I wish we had time, cause I'vegot a really great story about
that, but it'll have to beanother time.
Before we wrap, patrick, we'vegot a some rapid fire questions
(50:46):
for you.
That's rapid fire questions forrapid fire answers, and they're
not hard.
Where do you?
Speaker 1 (50:57):
feel most inspired where?
When, yeah, where where goshinside my mind.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh, I love it, since you take that everywhere you go.
That's convenient.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
I haven't lost it yet .
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I love that.
What's one lesson you'velearned from your creative
community?
Speaker 1 (51:22):
How to open my heart.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Wow, I feel that.
I feel that right here, coldchills just ran up and down my
entire body.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Good.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Wow.
And final question what's aquirky ritual that you do before
starting a project?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Oh no, what's a my gosh, my gosh, this is not very
rapid.
Well, I mean, it's not.
I don't think it's quirky.
I light a candle in Palo Santoand I will I don't know if this
(52:08):
is a verb, but I will palo santoa piece, so it just kind of
clears it.
So I guess that's quirky, Idon't know, I'm sure there's a
lot of people that would thinkthat's quirky.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Great questions.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Well, this has just been a complete pleasure, and I
just wish we weren't out of time.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
We can have part two.
Whenever you're up for it, I'mhappy to oblige.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, you just bring a lot to the conversation.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
You're very welcome, Alex and Dwight.
One of the main things that I always want to say
to people that remember thatthose times when you were four,
five and six years old and youknew exactly how to be creative
effortlessly you still have thatinside you yes it can't go
(00:31):
anywhere.
How could it go somewhere?
It's not if people feel like oh, I've lost it, you've just
misplaced it you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
You've buried it underneath.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Buried it, yeah, it's there, it's there, it's always
there.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hey, it's Maddox, and I'm here with my co-host,
dwight, and we are theConnections and Community Guys.
And yes, of course, you'relistening to the For the Love of
Creatives podcast.
Today, our featured guest isPatrick Williams, and we're
excited to have him on todaybecause we've read a little bit
(01:17):
about his bio and seems like hehas an absolutely fascinating
story and we believe he's goingto impart some real wisdom.
So, patrick, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Happy to be here.
Thanks, Maddox, Thanks Dwight.
Glad to have you, glad to haveyou.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So I'm going to turn it over to you and let you tell
the audience a little bit aboutyou.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Sure, thank you.
I'm Patrick Williams.
I'm a lifelong artist.
I've had many hats, includingthis one, throughout my life.
As most artists, most peopleinto creatives, are people with
many backgrounds, so to speak,and many avenues.
(02:01):
I've driven a school bus.
I taught ice skating when I wasin high school not for money,
though, it was purely as acommunity service, so to speak.
Let's see, I was self-taught.
I taught myself how to draw andpaint at home and then went off
(02:27):
to college and got a BFA inpainting.
I had a wild, crazy, amazingpainting professor named Richard
Tricky.
He is no longer on this planet,as far as I know, longer on
this planet, as far as I knowand he was a major person in my
(02:48):
life to accelerate my vision anddrive and passion.
He gave me a studio when I wasa sophomore undergraduate, which
is essentially unheard of whenthere were graduate students on
a waiting list.
So he saw something in me andit was very powerful.
(03:12):
After college I had, like Isaid, many jobs.
I've worked in daycare andcommunity centers and I've done
private.
I was a painter of houses also.
Lots of artistic visual artistsalso have had backgrounds in
(03:34):
painting interiors and exteriorsof houses.
One way, one thing is that wecould do it faster than most
other people because we'repainting all the time.
That's my theory of why thathappens, and in some ways it's
easy for us to paint.
So I did that.
(03:56):
I got married later in life.
My wife and I met in 1999 at ashow I was having in Omaha,
nebraska, which is we're livingback here now.
And then we started a nonprofitwe've had for 25 years now,
called Satori Institute.
(04:16):
It's an arts education,investigative, journalist,
healing, research Organizationand we've gone through all that.
That organization has had manyincarnations, so to speak, as
we've been indifferent.
We've lived in Chicago foryears and and then in Boulder
for years and now we're here inOmaha.
(04:38):
What else?
I've made a lot of paintings inmy life.
I've always had a studiowherever I've lived, so that has
been a constant.
I'm passionate about drawingalso and art history, and that
(04:59):
maybe sums up the skimming ofstone across the pond of my life
.
That's a little snippet of whoI am.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, it's great.
I can't wait to dive in alittle bit deeper.
Sure, why don't you tell us howit all got started?
I mean that very, very I know,as I read a little bit of your
stuff.
You talk about how childrencome into the world with the
superpower of creativity.
When did you discover yoursuperpower?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I felt like I always knew aboutit, specifically about drawing.
You know, when we're little wehave crayons and pencils and I
was always doodling and drawing.
(05:50):
My wife and I just had aconversation about going to
church and the two things Iremember as a little boy of
being in church is the paintingon the wall of this little tiny
Methodist brick building churchin Omaha, nebraska, and drawing
(06:13):
in the whatever that's calledthe schedule for the day for the
service.
So I would just draw everywhereon those things and I kind of
wish my mom would have kept allthose.
It would have been a cool showto have dozens and dozens of
these little drawings that I didon those little pamphlets that
(06:37):
were given out every Sunday theschedule of what hymns we're
going to read and when we'regoing to do whatever we're
supposed to be doing during theSunday sermon.
I agree, that would have beenway cool.
Yeah, yeah, super cool.
I can remember them in a way ofwhat was kind of going through
(06:58):
my head.
But back to the subject.
I was drawing all the time andthen in the TEDx talk I tell the
story of how those two thingsin my life really came together
and it wasn't until I wasaccepted to do the talk, when I
(07:18):
was thinking I would tell twostories to people.
I would tell stories about howI started drawing around age 10,
but then I would tell anotherstory about what happened with
my woods.
And and it wasn't until Istarted writing the TEDx talk
(07:39):
that I realized oh that's, theywere integral.
One one spark literally sparkedthe other, that I had to put
all that, that grief and thatsorrow and that heartache of
losing those trees, intosomething.
And the blessing was that I haddrawing to put it into.
(08:02):
So after that point I reallystarted focusing at looking at
something and attempting to drawit.
We had whatever I was using forpaper you know, probably typing
paper back in the day.
The two of you know totallywhat I'm talking about.
Sometimes I'm with youngerfolks.
(08:23):
They're like typing paper.
So I would you know totallywhat I'm talking about.
Sometimes I'm with youngerfolks.
They're like typing paper.
So I would you know, havetyping paper and number two
pencils or my crayons, andthat's what I would.
I was constantly trying tofigure out how to make things
appear on a piece of paper asthey appeared on the table or
whatever I was looking at, andthen also in school, I was
(08:48):
always drawing.
I was making up characters andanimals.
I was into dinosaurs, of course, like so many of us were, and I
would give these creatures aLatin-sounding name.
So I was exploring all kinds ofimaginal directions as a kid,
(09:14):
as a young kid, from 10 until Istarted painting about 14 or 15.
I made my first stretchedcanvas at 15, I made my first
stretched canvas at 15 and thenit just accelerated from there.
I made 20 or 30 paintings inhigh school that were 30 by 40
(09:38):
inches and some 6 feet by 3 feet.
So they were unusual adventures, creatively, for a teenager.
Usually, when someone startspainting, even as an adult,
they'll pick, you know, like aneight and a half by 11 canvas to
(09:59):
work on, or maybe 10 by 12 orwhatever.
It's a.
It's a.
It's usually an incrementalbaby step, baby step process,
but I just dove in, you know,once I the.
I just didn't have that, thatuh ceiling for myself with
(10:19):
respect to what I could do forsome reason.
Uh, I could do for some reason.
It's a blessing for sure.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I just I kept, I just never stopped from that
early age.
Yeah, it sounds like you had alot of encouragement with the
artistic pursuits.
I mean the path from drawing onthe programs at church to
having access to be able to workwith these large canvases, to
(10:55):
getting the BFA.
I mean your experience soundsquite unusual.
What did you have, or who didyou have, that was encouraging
these pursuits, when the morecommon story that we seem to
hear is that people are told bytheir parents and caregivers
(11:16):
that they need to do somethingvery practical?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, well, I certainly got the practical talk
, but my mom was veryencouraging.
She supplied me with drawingpads and we had number two
(11:45):
pencils everywhere, so Ireceived the bare minimum, but
that was enough to keep my sparkgoing.
And then in sixth grade I hadan experience with right off the
bat.
In sixth grade we moved fromelementary school to the junior
(12:06):
high school in sixth grade and Ithink it was the first year
they tried that in our schoolsystem back in the day.
And when that started, there wasan after-school program called
Challenge and literally all myfriends were in Challenge and I
(12:27):
wanted to be in challenge and Ifinally got up the nerve to ask
my teacher I want to be inchallenge, how can that happen?
And she said, well, you can'tbe in challenge.
That's only for the gifted kidsand they get all good grades
and your grades aren't too hot.
You know they're, they're,you're in the lowest reading
(12:48):
group and the lowest, uh, mathgroup.
And I said, well, I want to bein challenge.
You know, I had it was like oneI had one direction that I
wanted to go and it was to bewith my friends, because they
were telling me all these coolthings that they were doing.
They were going on field trips,they were watching
documentaries, it was.
I wanted to do that and shesaid, well, I don't think that's
(13:11):
really possible.
And then I, you know, I wasjust persistent and then, yeah,
it was, it was amazing.
uh, I was super shy when I waslittle and she said, well, you
would have to get better inevery subject.
And I said, okay, how do I dothat?
And she said, well, you'd haveto study.
(13:32):
And I said, well, how do you dothat?
And before that I was notinterested in school much at all
, except they supplied me withmanila paper and crayons.
I could draw that's pretty muchor be outside that's, those
were my two interests.
So she told me how to how tostudy and how to bring my grades
(13:53):
up, and I applied myself andwithin like two or three weeks,
you know, I was getting ahundred on spelling and a
hundred on social studies and Ihad jumped into the highest math
group and the highest readinggroup, and so I got into
challenge and what was funny?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
She lit a fire under your ass, didn't she?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, totally.
It was two fires.
I had a fire and she was like,okay, if you want to do this,
here's how to do it.
And I don't think she thoughtthat I was going to be able to
do something like that.
But what was interesting is thatonce I got into the class I
realized that these are my triberight, and part of it was that
(14:39):
my mother had, and part of itwas that my mother had, we had
my best friend's father had.
He always had some side jobgoing on.
And that year you know it was acouple years before I was in
sixth grade he sold us a WorldBook Encyclopedia set and it was
(15:08):
like, oh, I love it.
I would just pick up one of theletters and flip through it and
just read all kinds of amazingthings.
So it wasn't until I was inchallenge that I realized that
all of that time I spent with,you know, letter A or letter F
or whatever was adding to mythis knowledge that I didn't
really think I I had.
But it was so useful amongstthe my tribe, so to speak.
(15:33):
And it wasn't until then that II had this, uh, awareness that
there was a an intellectual sideof of being on the planet.
You know, for me it was justart and play, which is, you know
, in some ways, what I do now.
But there's also this it justturned on a switch for me that I
(15:55):
started thinking about thingsand reading more thoroughly and
paying attention to how thingswork, how relationships work.
It was a vital part of mydevelopment.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
It all sounds very serendipitous.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
It does.
But there's a through line thatis so remarkable and we can't
see it necessarily until we'rein the moment and we have that
choice.
And somehow for me right now, Ithink back at who I was when I
(16:36):
was whatever 11, in sixth grade,somewhere in there, somewhere
in there, uh, what, what, whatfire did I connect with?
That got me up in front of theteacher during lunch.
You know, all the other kidswere at lunch and I was just.
I stood, I was, I'm sure I wasnervous as a saw hell, but yeah,
(16:57):
that was.
It just clicked, that's great.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
that really blows me away is that you found your
tribe at such an early age.
Oh my God, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
You're so blessed, I feel, feel blessed yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, you know it's funny as you.
You talk about that, thatprocess of curiosity.
I'm thinking the the equivalenttoday would be for a young
person who went to the randompage on Wikipedia.
You know it has a feature whereyou can just show me something
random, totally.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Or the sense of.
I remember when Wikipedia cameout and I was speaking to a,
he's a millennial or maybe alittle older, whatever, whatever
we call generation X, maybe isthat before millennials but he
said okay.
(17:56):
He said I just Wikipedia isamazing, I just lose myself
inside of it for hours.
And that's exactly.
You were totally correct, right?
That's exactly what I did withthe analog version of Wikipedia.
You know the actualencyclopedia.
I would just get lost in it.
(18:17):
I'd get lost in the dictionary.
I would ask my mom for you knowwhat does this word mean?
And she said go look it up.
I said I don't want to look itup, I know, you know what does
this word mean?
And she said go look it up.
I said I don't want to look itup, I know, you know what it
means.
And she said you'll remember itbetter if you go look it up.
And I'd go look it up and thenI'd get, I'd discover all kinds
of words and flip the page andjust totally ran in the
(18:38):
serendipitous quality of whatcreativity really is.
It is a large part of bumpinginto things and being amazed
Like wow, that's super cool, Inever thought of that before.
And then that often links tosomething that you're working on
(19:01):
.
You're working on, yeah,whether it's, whether it's an
artistic piece or or somethingfor a career or a job, or or a
relationship, whatever it mightbe, but that's how that's.
One of the blessings ofcreativity is that we're our
curiosity nudges us indirections that help help.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
There's lots of overlap.
Totally, I've just been, reallyrecently, broadened into an
understanding of creativity thatI didn't have.
You know, I've been creativeall my life not incredibly
artistic, I mean, I coulddecorate the house for Christmas
, you know.
Or I was in the beauty industryfor 40 years makeup artist,
hairdresser, colorist, wardrobebut I've just come to realize
(19:55):
that creativity, I mean it is inevery breath that we take
Absolutely.
In every breath that we takeAbsolutely.
You know, I've come to really,really appreciate how we get to
create our life any way we wantto create it.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right Totally.
It's like an ongoing piece ofart.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
It is like an ongoing no-transcript creating my life
(20:45):
until just recently.
It's just like the dots gotconnected in a way that just
kind of you know, wow, I justsee it from a different
perspective now and now, my God,creativity is not some
frivolous thing that we get theprivilege of doing, it's like a
necessary it's like a necessary,it's like friggin oxygen.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
No, totally, yeah, I, I, I put it with the, exactly
that oxygen, uh, water, food andcreativity, you know we need,
you know, with whatever theother ones are clothing, uh, a
dwelling, the necessities, you,the absolute necessities of life
.
I mean, in some ways we livedfor millennia without a house or
home.
But well, we had a home, but wedidn't have a house.
(21:39):
Or we had a cave, maybe a cave,I, I, I'm not sure about that.
I know we did hang out in caves, but I think we did other
things too to make a home.
But anyway, so I, creativity isan essential to living and we,
we do it.
We, I, I have divided it upinto a general creativity,
(22:05):
conventional creativity andspecialized creativity.
So we do.
General creativity is when Ichose this shirt, you know, two
hours ago, to have for thepodcast.
You know, those are little tinycreative acts and, maddox, you
were describing something thatis, I think.
And, maddox, you weredescribing something that is, I
(22:28):
think even it's betweenconventional and specialized,
when you were talking about hair, makeup, costuming.
All of those things are, Iwould say, more in the
(22:54):
specialized area of creativitythan in the conventional.
Conventional, for me is how anengineer is creative in
designing and building a bridge,or when people are coming up
with their ideas.
How to when?
When the two of you wereconceiving of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
You were using general creativity and a lot of
conventional creativity that wehave access to as human beings
all the time.
One of my favorite examples, ofwhich I want to thank you're
talking about conventionalcreativity is, I always
laughingly say, I have thisreally special way that I fold
the potato chip bag down so thechips stay fresh, and it was a
form of creativity for me.
I really spent time playingwith the bag until I found,
(23:42):
rolling it down, a way that theystay fresh for an extended
period of time and peoplechuckle when I say that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's true, and that's a perfect example of how we're
able to tap into the spectrum ofcreativity that goes all the
way from just the tiniestcreative spark all the way up to
the conflagration of total,amazing creative energies.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I'm going to turn my other monitor on for a quick
second, because there wassomething else that I saw in
your profile that I wanted toask about.
This puts a lot of bright lighton my face, so I'll turn it
right off.
Two other terms that I wouldlove to hear a little bit more
about.
One of them was creativecolonization and the other one
was creative collapse.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, those are.
So I started.
I started working on amanuscript more years ago than I
want to admit that it's slowlygetting there Within the idea of
writing about creativity.
I sat with myself and reflectedon everything that I could tune
(25:03):
into what I knew aboutcreativity, into what I knew
about creativity from the, thenatural qualities that I had
when I was, you know, three,four or five years old, that we
all have, and then the whatcaused me to stick with it.
(25:25):
When I saw I worked ineducation for a lot of years
specifically with the arts, andI could see how some children
kept going and some childrenstopped.
Some children had the glasshalf full, so to speak, of their
(25:48):
creative.
Some kids it was full andoverflowing.
Some kids the glass was empty.
But that was very curious to me.
So after a lot of contemplationI came up with creative
colonization, which means we areall natural in how we relate to
(26:15):
creativity from when we'rechildren.
Children, there's no off switchon creativity for them.
They are no questioning iteither.
(26:43):
One person sort of says well, Iam.
Colonization is what happens inbetween.
It's when our natural creativenature is slowly pulled away
(27:04):
from us and other things are putin its place, as in a culture
where a colonizer comes in andintroduces new language, new
rituals, new religions, newbooks, whatever it might be.
(27:28):
A whole new culture is pushedonto, the people being colonized
, and I believe it's the sameway with children.
With respect to creativity,it's pushed out.
It's a really strongdescription, but I think it
really gets people to payattention that we were all in
(27:53):
different ways colonized withrespect to our creativity.
Some of it is instrumental ormusical, vocal colonization,
some of it is writing, some ofit's reading, some of it's
singing.
I said that.
(28:13):
Some of it's visual arts, soit's not just one For me.
I was strong, I didn't lose, Iwasn't colonized visually in my
visual arts, but I was colonizedwith respect to music.
I had no idea and I wasterrified of music.
I love music now, but I had togo through my restoration of
(28:38):
that later on in my life.
So creative colonization happensat home, in school situations,
situations and in the wide worldin, and it can be at different
levels and and the colonizationcan be, can be direct or
(29:01):
indirect, so it literally can besomeone a teacher or a parent
or a relative or somebody in aclass that you're taking in the
community that says that's nothow you draw a tree, from an
(29:24):
adult who has their owncolonization and collapse and is
being triggered by a little kidthat has drawn a really great
looking tree.
But something comes out andthat's malicious.
Sometimes it's innocent, it'slike maybe that's not how to
draw a house or a fence or abird or whatever it might be,
(29:47):
but the child takes that reallyintensely, it makes an
impression on them and afterenough impressions then a kind
of collapse happens.
That's why I call it creativecollapse.
The music for me just collapsedthat.
The music for me just collapsedAfter third grade with those
(30:12):
little flutes, the whatever Ican't think of the name
Recorders.
Yeah, the recorders.
I had no idea I was barely, Iwas just trying to, I was still
figuring out the alphabet andhow to read.
Yeah, and when she put theteacher put up the scale and
started drawing the notes, likewhat is going on, and those
(30:35):
notes were connected to myfingers and a sound.
I was not ready for that right.
So I just collapsed.
But with art, with visual arts,I never lost it.
I was always filling my glassup more and more and more and
more.
So creative collapse happenswhen an event it could be a
(30:55):
specific moment when a teachersays you can your heart and you
reconnect with it.
In between, that moment whenour hearts are reopened and we
(31:17):
restore our creativity aftercreative collapse, I call that
the creative void, and that maylast a week, a month, a year.
It may last a week a month, ayear, or it might last from
third grade until someone is 95.
And they have a very specialmoment and say you know what?
(31:40):
I'm going to pick up my guitaragain.
I haven't picked it up since Iwas 12, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
And they start playing guitar again, and for
some people, that collapse maynever be something they recover
from.
They just repeat the same dayover and over, until one day
they die of a heart attack.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Exactly, yeah, and, and that I think that that is
very well put, dwight, that Ifeel in my TEDx talk I call it
the splinter in our soul, uh,which is also a very, uh,
intense imagery or metaphor, butthat's what?
What?
How deeply I feel the removalor the disconnection that
(32:27):
happens to children with respectto their creativity.
That is how intense it is andto what you said, that is
damaging to our hearts.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Oh, yes, yes.
And everybody I talk to feel it.
Oh yes, oh yes.
I have a question aboutcolonization.
I'm reflecting back on my ownchildhood and remembering.
You know, we were not poor whenI was a child, but we weren't
rich either, and so we had touse our imaginations.
(33:03):
I can remember mom giving me abath towel and a clothespin and
I made a superhero cape.
She gave me an old ivory liquidsoap bottle and that was my
squirt gun.
There were all kinds of thingsI used to.
Hot wheels were a big thingwhen I was a kid and I had a
(33:25):
handful of Hot Wheels and Iwould draw entire cities on the
driveway and the sidewalk whereI could drive my cars, my Hot
Wheels, around.
I just wonder I guess myquestion is well, more
statements before my question.
I would frigging hate to be achild today.
I'm so glad I got to be a childwhen I got to be a child,
(33:48):
because here comes the question,part of it Do you think that
technology and screens anddevices has played a role in
that colonization?
Because kids don't.
They don't A we're moreaffluent now as a population, so
they don't have to really makethings.
(34:09):
They can buy things.
They don't have to have thetowel and the clothespin,
because they can just go buy asuper cape.
I'd love to know your thoughtson that.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Oh, yeah, for sure I have a lot of thoughts on that.
Yes, love to know your thoughtson that.
Oh, yeah, for sure I have a lotof thoughts on that.
Yes, the, it's a new kind ofcolonization, I think so we're.
We're experiencing well, the,the, the research is had.
The research on television andthe effects of it on children
(34:46):
started in the 1940s.
Literally there were folksdoing, there were educators,
there were academic folks ineducation departments that knew
this new thing, television,could be damaging to children's
development.
And sure enough they found thatin the 40s and 50s that time
(35:12):
spent watching television islimiting children's ability to
develop or changing theirability to develop.
And this was found both.
It was found linguistically, itwas found visually.
It was found linguistically, itwas found visually, it was
(35:37):
found motor sensory, on alllevels of child development, on
brain development.
Once, once they started doingbrain scans you know whatever
year that started, they startedseeing how children were being
changed by whatever amount oftime that they were watching
television.
So now we have these screenseverywhere, so they're
(36:00):
completely interrupting play.
I would, if a parent asked me,if they just straight up said
should I go out and buy my kid aSuperman outfit?
So they can, you know, go.
And I said, no, just go home,get some clothespins, get a
towel and let them go.
(36:21):
That is what real play is about.
It's undirected, unrestricted,free-form discovery.
That's what play is and that isthe only way and this will
(36:41):
sound wild it is the only waythat human beings learn, not
just children.
Every single one of us, nomatter how old, we learn through
play.
The play looks different whenwe're above the age of 10 or 15
(37:02):
or 20, but we're also.
We have those moments in ourlife that we are goofy and silly
and pretending, and that'splayful and we know it's very
much like how we were when wewere children and in those
moments we're exploring things.
(37:24):
As an example, when childrenplay, make-believe whatever that
might look like when they're,whatever that might look like,
they're playing house.
You know, I'm mom, I'm dad, youknow, here are the kids.
They're literally inventingways in which they relate to
(37:46):
each other and the play isteaching them how to relate, how
to use their imaginations, howto reflect on.
What does mom do?
What does dad do?
What does my older sister do?
What does the mail carrier do?
I'm going to be the mailcarrier.
You be the whatever, whateverthe play might be, they're,
(38:10):
they're discoveringrelationships, but they're also
creating situations which theycan.
They're.
They're new and curiousopportunities to draw, to try
this out or to try that out.
So make believe is superimportant.
Play is our form of learning.
(38:32):
We also are able to rememberthings within the educational
system that I don't necessarilycall learning with a capital L,
but it's learning with alowercase l or just rote
memorization, and all three ofus have been through that, you
(38:56):
know, especially years and yearsago.
Yeah, we had, we had all kindsof uh exercises and a
memorization of themultiplication tables or
whatever it might be.
So so we can, we can packinformation into our minds to be
able to regurgitate it, butthat I don't believe that is
(39:19):
actual learning.
Learning is something that onceyou learn it, you know it
forever.
You never, ever forget how.
I do not I, I, I will alwaysknow how to use a pencil.
It's not like but, but the, uh,the.
(39:40):
I'm trying to think of somethingobtuse.
You know, there is some math Iwould have to really work on
doing a whole bunch of binomialequations right now.
You know I'd have to sit withthem and like, okay, I remember
doing this, but I think I wasforcing myself, just like the
(40:00):
instruction was forcing us, tomemorize these qualities.
Now, someone who didn't have amathematical collapse would be
like oh, I can do tensorcalculus and I can do any level
of algebra or geometry orwhatever it might be.
So my point is that I'm tryingto get back to the core of the
(40:25):
question.
Maddox, the hour it wasinvolved with play, I can't
remember where.
Where did we start, maddox?
What was the Well?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I'll just give my take on what you've said and
draws back to an earlier point.
Play is essential, like it's apart of who we're being and
something that I was pulling onwhen you were talking earlier
about how it's essential that wecreate.
(40:58):
I see how they're related andwhat.
What was burned at the front ofmy mind was how we're
challenging the Maslow'shierarchy of needs right.
Challenging the maslow'shierarchy of needs right.
Like we need to rewrite that,because actualization is not
something that goes at the topof the pyramid.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Creativity is something that needs to be
sprinkled throughout absolutely,I totally agree, you know I
don't think children are arereally given the opportunity to
use their imaginations the waywe were when we were kids.
True, because it's provided,now We've got AI, that we can
say create a picture for me ofwhatever Steal a picture.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah.
It's just like yeah, ai is a.
I'm actually doing a podcastnext week with someone who I've
done other podcasts with, but itis a podcast about AI and he
has no idea he probably he maynever have me on again.
(42:06):
I am, ai is a tool and it's a.
It's a.
It's a dumb program thatimpresses people with how
quickly it can do some actions,but it is not creative, it
cannot be creative and it neverwill be creative.
It's creativity is a nonalgorithmic function.
(42:29):
Yes, creativity is us bumpinginto things.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
it's a deeply intuitive, intuitive process
yeah, absolutely, I does nothave intuition I I think it's
great for lots of things.
Yeah, totally yeah, um, butthere's certainly a lot of
things that I wouldn't dream ofusing it for, because it would
rob me of my imagination and mycreative process.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Exactly, that's true.
And back to that made me thinkof talking about the screens and
how that is very, verydisruptive to children's
development brain development,relational development,
relational development,communicating development,
(43:17):
community development and itrobs them of play and
imagination and curiosity andtheir creativity.
So I encourage any parent withchildren to limit, extensively,
limit, any time on the screen.
(43:38):
It's not good and the light,the blue light, is horrible.
It's a horrible.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Not to be too controversial, but I would go a
step further and say that anytime that you have screened as
babysitter, where everything isprepackaged and we've got the
children being indoctrinated bywhat they're seeing, it not only
kills their imagination, italso cripples them when it comes
(44:12):
to being able to deploycritical thinking.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Totally, absolutely, and I loved, before we started
recording, how open the two ofyou are to having a conversation
that goes anywhere.
Having a conversation that goesanywhere and that is essential
(44:41):
for us as human beings.
It's part of how we, as adults,play in the intellectual realm
of who we are and how wediscover who other people are.
If we're not able to disagreeon whatever anything might be,
that is unhealthy for us as acommunity.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
It is so important.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I disagree with myself all the time, so it's
totally okay for me to disagreewith with others or with
everybody else in the world.
It it.
It helps us understand who weare and who everybody else is.
So and the screen often robs usof that and and especially
(45:28):
within the realm of Twitter orthat, you hide behind a icon
that is not you and that givesyou supposedly the liberty to
say anything about anything, butwe don't know who that is.
(45:50):
It could be a robot, it couldbe a bot, it could be some ai,
you know, just trying to adjustthe, the algorithm.
So it it.
It's just mind-boggling how howmuch we need to get you know.
It's funny because we werehearing it when we were kids get
(46:11):
back to nature.
There was all that kind of senseof how things were getting too
crazy and too machined, and thisgoes back all the way to the
end of the 1800s, whenindustrialization was really
(46:31):
pumping up, whenindustrialization was really
pumping up, and we saw thisinflux of a dystopian worldview
that has just kept going, andwe're at a point now that I
think it's great, though I haveto say that I believe this
(46:51):
so-called AI is assisting us inreconnecting with our humanness
and reconnecting to authenticcommunity right.
So it's what the two of you aredoing, and what I'm blessed to
do with you right now isinteract is play.
(47:13):
Have a playful conversation,have a curious conversation,
have a creative conversationabout what we're seeing in the
world and how we're able to usewhere we've been when we were
five years old and 10 years oldand 15 and how different the
world is now and assisting youngfolks in the wisdom that we
(47:40):
have that can help them withwhat they're struggling with.
The screen is definitely astruggle.
Right now, kids are addictedparents, children, adults
struggle.
Right now, kids are addictedParents, children, adults
everybody.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
So many people are addicted to the screen.
Patrick, your words are soaffirming and I just want to say
thank you for that.
You know, we don't really knowwhere any of these conversations
go when we start, and that'sthe joy of it Totally.
I mean, I feel like we're aboutout of time and I feel like we
could barely scratch the surface, because I feel like there's
(48:16):
just so much more we could talkabout and so much more that I
would love to know about you andyour process, and I think that
what we have unpacked today hasjust been amazing.
Oh good, the time flew bybecause I just was just enjoying
the conversation so much.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Super Maddox.
Thank you, I'd love to hearthat we should be open to
picking it up again sometime.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
I would be happy to.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
We may need to do a part two because, like I say, I
don't think we've scratched thesurface yet.
Yeah, need to do a part twobecause, like I say, I don't
think we've scratched thesurface yet.
Yeah, but gosh.
I just want to say that my mindand my perspective has been
expanded in ways that you haveshared, all you've shared.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Excellent and, on that note, remember this is,
this is one of.
This is pretty much one of themain things that I I always want
to say to people that rememberthat that those times when you
were five, four, five and sixyears old and you knew exactly
(49:32):
how to be creative effortlessly,you still have that inside you.
It can't go anywhere.
How could it go somewhere?
People feel like, oh, I've lostit, you've just misplaced it.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
You've buried it underneath a bunch of crap.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
It's there, it's always there oh, patrick, you
are in great company, becauseI'm reminded of the wise words
of robert green and mastery,yeah, as he describes the, the
life of leonardo da vinci andall the other luminaries in that
book.
And uh, well, even, um, youknow, to get contemporary, um
(50:15):
chase jarvis and uh, never playit safe.
You know, yeah, play is was oneof the seven levers of
creativity, totally absolutely,yep, yep, super important.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, we and it's, it's human the children get it
and old people get it it's allthe people in between that,
right, yeah?
And I've got.
I wish we had time, cause I'vegot a really great story about
that, but it'll have to beanother time.
Before we wrap, patrick, we'vegot a some rapid fire questions
(50:46):
for you.
That's rapid fire questions forrapid fire answers, and they're
not hard.
Where do you?
Speaker 1 (50:57):
feel most inspired where?
When, yeah, where where goshinside my mind.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Oh, I love it, since you take that everywhere you go.
That's convenient.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
I haven't lost it yet .
Speaker 2 (51:13):
I love that.
What's one lesson you'velearned from your creative
community?
Speaker 1 (51:22):
How to open my heart.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Wow, I feel that.
I feel that right here, coldchills just ran up and down my
entire body.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Good.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Wow.
And final question what's aquirky ritual that you do before
starting a project?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Oh no, what's a my gosh, my gosh, this is not very
rapid.
Well, I mean, it's not.
I don't think it's quirky.
I light a candle in Palo Santoand I will I don't know if this
(52:08):
is a verb, but I will palo santoa piece, so it just kind of
clears it.
So I guess that's quirky, Idon't know, I'm sure there's a
lot of people that would thinkthat's quirky.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Great questions.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Well, this has just been a complete pleasure, and I
just wish we weren't out of time.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
We can have part two.
Whenever you're up for it, I'mhappy to oblige.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, you just bring a lot to the conversation.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
You're very welcome, Alex and Dwight.
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