Prairie schooners and rocket ships: Kiel Johnson's creative life | Kiel Johnson | TEDxChristchurch

Summary

The speaker shares his journey as a creative individual, starting with cookie decorating and evolving into large-scale collaborative projects. He emphasizes the importance of visual thinking, getting started on projects, and learning from both successes and failures. Through various endeavors like constructing cameras, musical instruments, and even a city, he explores creativity with diverse groups, including office workers and art students. His projects, like building a plane and a space fleet, demonstrate the power of collaboration and imagination in achieving a creative life.

Takeaways

• 🎨 The speaker is passionate about creating and expressing himself through various art forms like drawing, sculpture, and video projects.
• 🍪 He started his creative journey by decorating cookies, which led him to explore object building.
• 📈 He believes that creativity is about thinking outside the box and encourages others to do the same.
• 📚 He experimented with school for 20 years, not just to learn facts, but to improve his visual communication skills.
• 🖋️ He advocates for 'speaking visually' by encouraging people to take notes in pictures and think in terms of colors and shapes.
• 💡 He stresses the importance of starting a project, even if it's a bad idea, because good ideas often come from working through the bad ones.
• 🛠️ He has built many things, including cameras and musical instruments, that didn't work as intended, but the process led to commercial opportunities.
• 🎥 He collaborated with a Hollywood producer to help sell a TV channel, showcasing how starting projects can lead to unexpected opportunities.
• 🤝 He is passionate about involving non-creatives in the process of making things, believing that everyone has the potential to be creative.
• 🚀 He explored the idea of making things with people by building a plane, a space fleet, and even attempting to use a laser, all of which led to learning and growth.
• 🌍 His most recent project involved a large-scale collaboration with students of all ages to build a detailed world, demonstrating the power of collective creativity.

Q & A

What is the speaker's obsession?

The speaker is obsessed with building the objects of his imagination.

How does the speaker record his emotions and observations?

The speaker records his emotions and observations through drawings, sculptures, video projects, and epic collaborations.

What was the speaker's first major step into the world of object building?

The speaker's first major step was when he got a job as a cookie decorator, which allowed him to use brushes, edible paints, and free cookies.

What advice did the speaker receive that led him to improve his social network?

The speaker was advised to think outside of the box or the bucket, which led him to improve his social network.

What did the speaker learn from experimenting with school over 20 years?

The speaker learned to speak better visually, read fiction, learned some facts, and improved his social IQ, but he never stopped drawing.

What does the speaker suggest to encourage a more visual form of communication?

The speaker suggests taking notes in the form of pictures, thinking about ideas in terms of colors and shapes, and scribbling more.

What is the most crucial thing for creativity according to the speaker?

The most crucial thing for creativity, according to the speaker, is to get started on a project.

How did the speaker's work lead to commercial jobs?

The speaker's work led to commercial jobs as many of his projects, despite not being perfect, ended up leading to opportunities.

What was the Hollywood hotshot's request that the speaker shared in the script?

The Hollywood hotshot requested the speaker's help to sell his TV channel.

What is the speaker passionate about that has taken up the last five years of his life?

The speaker is passionate about making things with people who normally wouldn't make things, such as office workers.

What was the outcome of the project where the speaker collaborated with art students to build a plane?

The plane was built with the help of 280 people in seven days, but it crashed due to mechanical failure or lack of an actual engine.