Where Do Original Ideas Come From?

Enlarging experience builds imagination.

Source: Michael Aleo/Unsplash

The year is young. We are still full of energy and ambition imagining what is to come and what we can make happen. Imagination is the hallmark of creativity. As we marvel at works of art, scientific discoveries, or technological innovations, one question comes keeps coming back – How did they think of it? What inspired them? Truly original ideas can seem to be pulled out of thin air.

But something original does not come out of a vacuum. Rather, inspiration comes from exploration.

Imagination is built on experience

Consider art. Works of art are objects that are brought into existence from ideas conceived in the world of imagination. What artists imagine is influenced by two big sources: mental imagery and memory.

Mental imagery is a form of sensory experience—seeing or hearing something—without direct external stimulus. We see with our mind’s eye, rather than our physical one. Memory that stimulates imagination is primarily episodic, or memory for our own experiences. For example, I went to an exhibit last weekend to see the first art amusement park with works by artists like Basquiat and Haring, Dali and Hockney. I can recall the lights and sounds in the interactive exhibits and the joy of being part of something that was almost lost to history. I remember colors and details and can imagine what could have been there or how the exhibit could be expanded on by contemporary artists.

Mental imagery and episodic memory as sources of inspiration have something in common—perception. And what we see, experience, and come to know, can be both inspirational and limiting.

In one study, scientists asked people to draw an extraterrestrial creature. That was the extent of the instruction. No constraints in what could be imagined. However, most people drew aliens very similar to Earth animals— they had legs and arms, sensory organs, and their bodies were bilaterally symmetrical. When people were told the alien animals were feathered, they tended to imagine creatures that also had other bird features, like beaks or wings. Scientists called this structured imagination—the thinking process is structured by known categories and examples from what we have seen and learned about.

If people in general rely on their knowledge and do not end up with very original ideas, what about artists? They use different strategies to augment their experience and, as a consequence, their imagination and originality.

How to expand imagination

What distinguishes the work of artists from work of people who face well-defined tasks is that they cannot start with an idea, then sit at their work station and do their job by following a clear plan and set of predefined steps. In a classic study of the creative process, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Jacob Getzels observed students at the Art Institute of Chicago working on a still life. Those who were judged by a panel of established artists and critics to have the most creative drawings spent most of their time exploring the objects provided by the researchers for the still life. They would create an arrangement, try to sketch it, approach it again to examine the objects, feel their surface and their weight, and rearrange the composition. Repeatedly. They did not work in a way our culture would consider efficient, but they produced something original and creative.

Professional artists engage in similar exploration in their studios. They play with ideas. Salvador Dali subscribed to scientific journals in multiple fields and jotted thoughts in the margins. Early in his career, he found inspiration in psychology and psychotherapy, especially the psychoanalytic writings on the unconscious. Affected by the death of his brother, he was preoccupied with dying and symbols of death and decay. Later in his career he became consumed by the horror of the nuclear bomb and aimed to portray the world of atomic particles he was reading about.

Similarly, Pablo Picasso found stimulation in collecting a broad range of cultural and artistic items, from African masks to paintings by his contemporaries. Stockpiling these items became a way to enlarge his imagination.

Another way artists increase their originality is by process modification. They change some element of how they work to open up to unexpected results. This can take a form of using different materials, tools, or media, changing something about the physical process of work, or changing motifs or images they portray.

For example, Takeshi Okada and Sawako Yokochi observed and interviewed a contemporary Japanese artist, Takeshi Shinohara, as he worked to create a new piece. He usually places paper on the ground and draws from above. And that is how he started this time too. But then he asked a what-if question. What if he did something different. So he decided to lay on the ground and place the paper above him by taping it to the bottom of a table. After a while working in this position, he went back to placing the paper on the ground.

In the interview, he described that at some points he felt confused because he seemed not to be able to control the work. He continued drawing, but his actions seemed to proceed ahead of his conscious intentions. He allowed himself to act, even though he was not sure why.

The drawing inspired a whole series of others and resulted in gallery and museum exhibitions.

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Artists are not the only ones who can expand their creative thinking. Scientists read journal articles and attend conferences collecting ideas that they then play with and connect in new ways.

Writers often have journals with thoughts or idea fragments that they use in their work either directly or as a jumping-off point toward new directions. Designers collect pieces of various materials, like fabrics or tiles, that they incorporate into their designs.

Inspiration for original and creative work needs material to work with. And we can give it a helping hand.