Philip Hii – guitarist

I’ve always been fascinated by the painting by numbers phenomenon.

You’re given a board or sheet of paper. All the areas to be painted are already mapped out and numbered. And all you have to do is apply the prescribed colored paints to their respective numbered areas and voilà, an instant masterpiece.

When I first found out about it, my first thought was ‘only in America.’ The ultimate democracy, so art has to be democratized too.

But then, I started thinking deeper.

And I realized, isn’t this what art is all about? Following some prescribed rules and applying them in some formulaic way?

For instance, Chinese brush painting is mostly about formulaic techniques.

There’re specific ways to paint mountains, rocks, flowers. The famous Mustard Seed manual is a good source for all these techniques.

That’s why most Chinese paintings look the same — to me anyway — the same serene misty cloud covered mountains and squiggly lined streams.

But then I probed even deeper, and I realized that western watercolor painting share the same traits and characteristics too.

For example, one of the most influential watercolorists of our time, Edgar Whitney is famous for teaching his calligraphic strokes (that’s the word he uses).

His approach is remarkably similar to the Chinese. Each object is represented by a calligraphic marking, a specific technique. There’re different calligraphic strokes for every object — trees, water, houses, etc.

So is this art? Or is it just formulaic reproductions, just a little less constrained perhaps than the painting by numbers approach?

More to the point, is this creativity or is it just mindless reproduction, or rearranging of the same formulaic elements?

It’s hard to say.

Some musicians seem to think that all they have to do is play a piece accurately, exactly as notated, and they have an interpretation.

Others seem to think that interpretation is about reproducing faithfully what the composer ‘intended.’ So they faithfully go back in time, and by analyzing contemporary writings, try to determine the ‘performance practices’ of the time.

Yet others think that performance is about reproducing what their favorite concert artist did in his/her tenth recording of that same piece.

To each his/her own, I guess.

Those people who paint by numbers, they’re proud of their work –  I’ve seen them even framed up in their living rooms.

So do all those Chinese brush painting enthusiasts; so too, those happy weekend watercolor warriors.

In fact, arguing about whether these are creative pursuits or not becomes almost a moot point, and even smacks of elitism. Who’s to judge what’s creative and what’s not?

Perhaps it comes down to that famous saying by Judge Potter Stewart:

[I can't define what it is.] “But I know it when I see it.”

Writing is a funny thing. You can sit on a manuscript for a few months and never notice anything, then as soon as you upload it, you begin to notice all the typos and clumsy syntax and expressions.

I’ve been tweaking the new version of the AOV and have rewritten the last two chapters quite extensively. I think the ideas are a little clearer in this new version.

Many thanks to Sarn Dyer for helping to proofread this latest version.

To download the book, please click on this link:

Latest version: AOV Sept. 3 2011

I’ve been thinking about creativity a great deal lately. Some of the impetus, I must say, have been provoked by the slew of publications I’ve found on the subject.

You don’t have to go far to find these publications. Thanks to google, all you have to do is type in ‘creativity’ in the search box, select ‘books,’ and you’ll see the whole gamut. Some of these books are over 400 pages long.

I actually have some of these books in my possession.

And I’m still waiting to dig into them. Somehow, the thought of having to wade through over 400 pages of scholarly discussion about creativity does not seem, in itself, to be a very creative thing to do so I’ve been avoiding it.

The question is, can creativity even be taught?

And that’s where I differ with these creativity experts.

For example, did anyone teach Bob Dylan to be creative? I’ve seen the documentary “Don’t look back.” He just sits with this typewriter and bang away at the keys. What’s driving him and providing him with all that creative energy?

Or Glenn Gould recording the Goldberg, singing and humming away, baring his soul to the world. Did someone teach him to come up with his unique and breathtaking interpretation of the work?

Or closer to home, if you’ve seen a young kid on the beach, making sand castles, or just playing with the sand. Did you see any creativity expert nearby telling him, “Here, sonny, this is how you make a sand castle”?

Creativity is an urge, a hunger, an obsession. It’s pure energy.

It can’t be taught just as you can’t teach someone to be hungry. All you can do is foster that energy, and give it an outlet.

I live in a city where people are constantly having to whitewash walls.

Now, I’m not condoning any acts of vandalism. Defacing public property and other people’s fences is not a fun matter for those having to clean it up.

But what drives young people to go out at night and spray paint public property? There’re many motivations, I suspect, but one of these has to be that creative energy bursting inside all these young hearts, just wanting to be expressed.

Although many of these expressions are just random territorial statements, some of them are incredibly beautiful.

Talking about graffiti, I’ve heard that graffiti is a serious crime in Singapore which is punishable with many strokes of the cane.

And I’ve also heard that Singapore is at the forefront in fostering creativity. They’ve recruited Edward de Bono and Andrei Aleinikov (two experts who I happen to have the greatest respect for) to help their citizens become more creative.

Now I wonder whether there’s any connection here.