TIME - TIME the Science of Creativity

Editor Edward Felsenthal

Creative Director D.W. Pine

The Science of Creativity

Editorial Director Kostya Kennedy

Editor Richard Jerome

Designer D.W. Pine

Photo Editor Patricia Cadley

Writers Sarah Begley, David Berreby, Serge Bloch, Anthony Brandt, David Eagleman, Walter Isaacson, Kay Redfield Jamison, Rod Judkins, Jeffrey Kluger, Courtney Mifsud, Katie Reilly, Brian Stauffer, Leigh Wells, Carl Wiens, Mark Yarm

Copy Editor Joseph McCombs

Reporter Elizabeth Bland

Editorial Production David Sloan

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Senior Manager, Finance Ashley Petrasovic

Senior Brand Manager Katherine Barnet

Prepress Manager Alex Voznesenskiy

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Editorial Director Kostya Kennedy

Creative Director Gary Stewart

Director of Photography Christina Lieberman

Editorial Operations Director Jamie Roth Major

Manager, Editorial Operations Gina Scauzillo

eISBN: 978-1-54784-192-9

Special thanks: Benjamin Ake, Brad Beatson, Brett Finkelstein, Melissa Frankenberry, Kristina Jutzi, Seniqua Koger, Kate Roncinske

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Contents

Parts of this edition appeared previously in TIME .

CHAPTER ONE

The Creative Animal

The impulse to invent and innovate is an integral part of being human

Bloch is a French illustrator whose iconic work has appeared in newspapers and magazines around the worldand appears above. He has also illustrated and written several books and received two gold medals from the Society of Illustrators.

Creativity is the art of combining a little idea with another little idea, you may have another little idea, and so on... at the end maybe a great idea will come up.

Serge Bloch

CHAPTER TWO

The Creative Mind

Inside the biological, intellectual and emotional forces that fuel creativity

Wells has been creating images and lettering for advertising, design, publishing and editorial clients in the U.S. and internationally for more than 20 years. Her work has appeared in major publications such as Harpers , the New York Times and TIME, including this special edition.

I tend to gather strong visual inspiration while having verbal experiencesreading an interesting article or well-written phrase, glimpsing a clever book title or overhearing a random pairing of words. Mental pictures appear!

Leigh Wells

CHAPTER THREE

Creativity in Action

It takes many forms, applying to virtually every realm of experience

As a contributing artist to hundreds of publications worldwide, Stauffer has made award-winning illustrations best known for their conceptual take on social issues. Through a unique combination of hand-drawn sketches, painted elements and scanned found objects, his work, an example of which is above, bridges the traditional and digital realms.

My creative process is centered around the need for a strong idea. The best way for me to get to that idea is to take as much of my own creative anxiety/baggage out of the process and to approach the subject with empathy. At best, I hope to imagine the thoughts, emotions and visuals that surround the subject.

Brian Stauffer

CHAPTER FOUR

Creativity at Any Age

The drive can flower and flourish from childhood to the golden years

Wiens, who created the image above, is an illustrator and printmaker residing in Belleville, Ontario; he teaches illustration at Sheridan College. His work has been recognized internationally by the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, 3 x 3 and Applied Arts Annual.

I draw inspiration from being outside, cycling or canoeing, from starry skies and swimming in the ocean. I also see beauty in science and mathematics, in the power of understanding and knowledge.

Carl Wiens

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON CREATIVITY

What neural networks underlie those aha moments of inspiration and invention?

BY JEFFREY KLUGER

At the Drexel University EEG Lab, elastic caps are rigged with multicolored EEG electrodes to help map the thinking brain.

Dont be too awed by the wonder of creativity. Much of it is simply moving matter arounda bit of clever rearranging. A Chippendale cabinet is nothing more than a transformed tree. The landscape artist, even a Van Gogh or Monet, did not invent the flowershe just ran with them. And the most succulent hunk of beef bourguignonne you ever whipped up seems a lot less remarkable when you accept that somebody already spotted you the cow. You were not responsible for creating so much as a single molecule in your final product.

But what about the ideas that guided the way you manipulated that matter? The shape the cabinet would takeits whorls and lines and its final umber color materialized in a brain before they materialized in the world. The same is true of the lines of a sonnet or the chords in a symphony or the vision of what Sunflowers should look like before it looked like anything at all to anyone but Van Gogh himself.

The source of such inspiration has long stymied scientists. Were all born with more or less the same brain, and we all use it in more or less the same way, but people we call creative seem able to summon up something elseinsight from the ether, music from the void. There is no such ether, of course, and by definition, a void is a void. Its the brain, at bottom, that is the seat of all creativity.