Customer Reviews

Why Are You Creative?

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This book is pure drivel, don't be fooled. If it's possible to put together a volume that has more self-aggrandizing and outright preposterous chapters I can't imagine who could pull it off. Take the chapter on Stephen Hawking as an example. Hawking states, "You have to be creative to do science. Otherwise you're just repeating tired formulas. You aren't doing anything new." Fair enough. The book's pseudo-analisys of this statement is the following,"Hawking deconstructs the universe. It is not his job to be creative, nor does he mean to be creative. He wants to understand creation." Give me a break. The only use for this book, outside of an expensive and ugly drink coaster, is as an exercise in self-parody.

This interesting work investigates the creative genius of some of the world's most prominent creatives in various fields. They are each asked the question Why Are You Creative; the answers are in some cases both verbal and graphic in the form of drawings. The answers are then analysed by a panel of psychologists. A photograph of the person concerned plus a short biography accompany each entry.

These creative people come from a vast spectrum of disciplines like art, design, architecture, advertising, photography, fashion, music, film, science and literature. The following are some of them: Laurie Anderson, Bono, David Bowie, Nick Cave, Johnny Depp, Peter Gabriel, Mel Gibson, Stephen Hawking, Damien Hirst, Quincy Jones, Milla Jovovich, Jeff Koons, Nelson Mandela, Yoko Ono, Leni Riefenstahl, Steven Spielberg, Oliviero Toscani, Wim Wenders and Vivienne Westwood.

The introductory section includes a foreword by the Dalai Lama, a chapter by Wim Wenders and an exploration of the categories of creative stimuli by Vaske. This fascinating study concludes with a bibliography and filmography.