In my presentations on creativity, I always suggest to folks to have a dream diary…some sort of notebook by the bed to record thoughts upon waking or archive actual dreams, if vivid enough. The artist Salvador Dali notoriously fancied pinning down the meanderings of his subconscious, even devising methods to force himself awake in the midst of a dream. The most well-known anecdote involves him falling asleep holding a spoon over a tin plate, and when it would invariably drop

What seemed like ages ago I did my first TEDx talk – TEDxHonolulu 2011 – with my creative partner from “History for Music Lovers”, Herb Mahelona. It was really tricksy because we didn’t live on the same island and therefore couldn’t practice together until the day before the event, each having memorized our respective parts of the script and practicing with voice recordings of the other punctuated by pauses. To be honest I thought I’d never do another one until several months

Today is Vincent Van Gogh‘s birthday…and there are so many thoughts going through my head. Perhaps the most spot on thing I’ve ever learned from him is the concept of “active melancholy” – yes, that is what he called it and it’s just perfect to describe the sort of creative frenzy one can go into while one is in a very dark place. My most creative moments have been in these times and I’m sure I’ll have many more. It’s a mixed blessing, of course. Given that Vincent wrote so m

In honor of the day Warhol passed away, I created this little film. It’s an extension of my #getsmART: Lessons from the Artists keynote I presented at Alan November’s Building Learning Communities. I’ve added more images and points, and this of course is only about Warhol. I’ll be doing more, but if you haven’t seen the Pablo Picasso one, please check it out. (I really need a better mic) #art #creativity #teaching #lessons #life #andywarhol #getsmart #pedagogy #picasso #amybu

While brainstorming for an upcoming keynote on Creativity, I started thinking about the artists whose lives I have studied a bit (as a former World History teacher) and what we could learn from them – not particularly from their oeuvres, but from their creative process and the way they lived. At first I set out to make one comprehensive post, but then recoiled, thinking it would be too overwhelming. So, this will be a blog series of sorts, highlighting one artist per post. LE