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            I’m teaching an introductory psychology course next quarter, and as I’m reviewing a variety of material, I’m finding many fascinating facts and ideas pretty nearly all of which relate to art in some way. With respect to the brain and the mind, the most compelling concept for me has always been the imagination. All of the senses are important and wonderful gifts that we share, but one can lose access to any one of these including that most precious one for painters, sight, and still have the ability to travel to the most remarkable places, think the most far reaching thoughts, and experience life as fully as desired. Einstein once said that “imagination encircles the world.” It is not limited as is knowledge.

            There have been great imaginary leaps during the history of mankind. The early toolmakers envisioned from necessity how to fashion what to us now seem crude implements, but for them that was a huge imaginary accomplishment. How did the first makers of bronze learn to create an amalgam of metals into one that would define an age of growth and creative exploration? At every step in our historical development each new expression has been the result of ingenuity wed to insight or insight wed to ingenuity, and what is insight but an exercise of the imagination? As Einstein and others have suggested, knowledge may accumulate over time, but what propels knowledge forward are imaginative insights.

            Through the centuries art and technology have evolved on a parallel track sometimes one influencing the other. Artists have themselves created innovations in order to make their creations. Leonardo is a prime example of the artist innovator, but many artists prior to modern times crafted their own tools to suit their needs. It is as though the great visionaries created an imaginary void that pulled creative energy into the formlessness and extruded manifested creations out the other side.

            It is good that imagination knows no bounds and that it is not relegated to any one arena. Science, the arts, technology, medicine, business, and education all have grown through imaginative leaps that like rising tides have raised all boats.