Make to Know: From Spaces of Uncertainty to Creative Discovery
Description
A journey through the minds of some of the most creative people on the planet reveals that creativity is rarely a “lightbulb moment” and instead arrives through a process of making and self-understanding.
The creative process is winding. It involves entertaining uncertainty and improvising new paths to knowing. In this insightful and informed book, Lorne M. Buchman, an international leader in art and design education and president of ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, guides readers through stories of a diverse and talented group of artists, entrepreneurs, innovators, and designers. Including such luminaries as Yves Béhar, Chris Kraus, Zack Snyder, Paula Scher, and Frank Gehry and businesses like Apple and Tesla who have changed the world as we know it, Buchman focuses on the revelatory nature of the creative journey itself.
Michelangelo is said to have seen the angel in the stone and carved away until he set him free. Make to Know is about making as a path to knowing—presenting creativity as a “carving away” toward a revelation, not as a fully formed epiphany gleaned from a mysterious ether. As Buchman reveals throughout this provocative book, uncertainty is the space where discovery happens and where creators can be both playful and imaginative. Whether you’re an artist, designer, writer, daydreamer, or doodler, anyone can learn from these lessons on the varied paths to self-expression.
Praise for Make to Know: From Spaces of Uncertainty to Creative Discovery
Use the stories in Make to Know as a blueprint to liberate yourself from self-doubt, creative blocks, and fear of failure. A masterful thesis that unlocks the framework for us all to reach our creative potential.
— LYNDA WEINMAN, Cofounder and executive chair, Lynda.com (now LinkedInLearning)
Make to Know is a vital and vibrant exploration of the creative process. The relationship between the artistic process and the intellectual process has rarely been broached in such an original way.
— STEVE VINEBERG, Distinguished Professor of the Arts and Humanities, College of the Holy Cross
Make to Know is an inspiring read and an encouraging book for trying times. It is a meditation on finding one’s own creative way to move forward.
— ESTHER PEARL WATSON, artist, visual storyteller and creator of the award-winning comic Unlovable
Make to Know will change your ideas about creativity, its relationship to making and uncertainty, and even how we live.
— CAROL T. CHRIST, Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley
Make to Know provides access to the mind and process of creators, and we learn from them the labor, the sacrifice, and the strength it requires to serve as vehicle of the new. It is a profound exploration of creativity.
— JAMES HOLLIS, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, and author of seventeen books, most recently, Prisms: Reflections on this Journey We Call Life
In Make to Know, Lorne Buchman meticulously weaves multiple voices, disciplines, methodologies, and experiences of the creative process to reveal how uncertainty is at its core. By actively creating a state of unknowing, we make to know ourselves, our relations, and our world. I love this book. My students and the world need it!
— REBECA MÉNDEZ, artist, designer and professor, Design Media Arts, UCLA
Illustrates the power of knowing through the practice of doing, and demystifies the creative process… If you’re feeling the need to express yourself, but are stuck in a procrastination loop, this book calls you to take action in the direction of your curiosity and learn about yourself in the process.
— Santa Barbara Independent