Cultivating Creativity

If “Creativity is the cure for the common curriculum,” Cultivating Creativity is the cure for the common educator. Professor Robertson’s masterfully crafted and edited volume shares activities developed over 35 years that are designed to teach students how to become more creative. Each exercise is a thoughtful invitation to the instructor and students to engage in creative thought and exploration as a fundamental skill in design.

Cultivating Creativity begins with a heartfelt foreword by Professor Robertson’s esteemed colleague Professor Daniel Winterbottom, who pens a peak-a-boo view into the caring and deeply moral character of the author. Professor Winterbottom’s poignant opening is followed by an immersive, autobiographical first chapter, Where Go the Boats. Here Professor Robertson illuminates the pages with his creative vision, pedagogy, and philosophical and spatial concepts. This chapter is a must-read as it sets the pace and intended use of the generous selection of practices that follow.

Following the opening chapter, the book becomes a manual and the reader becomes a user. Users may navigate the volume either at will or chronologically to sample the collection’s 31 tried-and-true exercises developed to guide group and individual efforts to cultivate creative processes and reflections. Compared to other books on the creative process or design, Cultivating Creativity is an invitation to both learn and teach from the material. Here in these pages, we are granted permission to explore pedagogy focused on gauging the honesty of glass bottles, making authentic and novel connections, cultivating empathy, and turning off the voices of our internal and external editors. The exercises in this volume are squarely aimed at shifting our mindset and fostering active participation in our own problem-solving and creative pursuits. There are endless takes and twists and turns on each practice that may lead to inexhaustible authentic creative pursuits and teaching moments for every reader. The flexibility in the presentation makes it something reliable to return to again and again during course planning.

Upon reading Cultivating Creativity, I began trialing these concepts and practices in curricula with students in ecological and marine science, as well as urban planning and landscape architecture, across several universities and programs. Some practices were relevant to the topics I was teaching, so I appreciated being able to select several activities across the term that I could share with students during various course investigations. I have found, just as Professor Robertson demonstrates, that while creativity shows up in different ways for different disciplines, there is widespread value when we encourage creativity and free-thinking in our courses. In Cultivating Creativity Professor Robertson engages the reader in design and design education and the myriad of ways in which challenging our creative impulses leads to improved quality in the design response. Creativity and problem-solving skills are like muscles, and practicing this art can bring wonder, joy, frustration, sharing, and learning to our personal and experiential lives. It also enriches the lives of our students. This work invites us to purposely make mistakes, share authentically, forge connections, and yes, tempt the fates!

Cultivating Creativity is a selective body of work that advances design pedagogy and practice amid the messy, inarticulate amusement park ride that is creativity and design education today. Designers and instructors alike can feel lost in the rapidly degrading environment and digitizing world in which we are focused on quickly arriving at “the correct answer.” Here Professor Robertson asks us to slow down and take the time to find out for ourselves what the most important questions and problems are and what answers and options are available for solving them. Emeritus Professor Robertson gave tirelessly to develop and test practices in creative thought and expression throughout his tenure in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington. He has used his masterful skills in collage and wordsmithing to wrap up his knowledge and experience in this reflective and expressive text, including the beautifully crafted collages and notes that adds authenticity and a unique textural quality to our relationship with the author.

Art, iteration, and play are too easily overlooked or even lost in our rapid simplification of design methods and processes, but ironically, they are critical to success. Professor Robertson’s book begs for a revolution. Throughout these pages, Professor Robertson encourages us to break the rules, color outside the lines, and ultimately enhance our life and our learning through an authentic and creative design process. After surviving colliding and multifaceted crises over the past few years, the idea of working to develop more “fluid” or “sovereign” minds may seem elusive to many educators. In these challenging times, Cultivating Creativity comes as a rare and timely gift from an expert in both mindfulness and whimsy. Design leaders and educators would do well to keep this book on hand for discovering endless ideas and opportunities for enriching group and classroom experiences, student learning outcomes, discussions, and personal creative and design identity.