Get your hands dirty – Experiment, fail, learn, and most importantly, stay curious.
1.Everything starts with curiosity and passion, the driving force of creativity. 2. Go beyond the fear of pooling knowledge. 3. Look for oxymorons. 4. Invent new rules of the game. 5. As J.G. Ballard told me, make new junctions.
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic director, Serpentine Galleries.
Quote found at Ezra Petronio’s book “Visual Thinking and Image Making”
As a creative and art director, I spend much of my day working in the digital world, but there’s something essential about stepping away from the screen and diving into hands-on projects.
There’s a connection that happens when you physically engage with materials, when you can feel the texture of clay or the grain of wood, watch colors blend in unexpected ways, or stitch a piece of fabric into something entirely new. These moments of tactile engagement remind us that creativity isn’t just about what we can envision on a screen. It’s about the process—the messiness, the imperfections, the happy accidents.
In my opinion, doing things with your hands also gives you space to disconnect, to be present in the moment. It relaxes the mind, clears the clutter, and allows new ideas to surface. When we make time for these off-screen projects, we recharge our creative batteries and stay connected to what makes our work meaningful in the first place.
So, get your hands dirty. Experiment, fail, learn, and most importantly, stay curious. Creativity isn’t just a skill, it’s a practice, and it thrives when we engage with it fully, with our hands and hearts.
