By Mark Bashore, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-919975.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI –
http://wkar.org/newsroom/images/reworkingmichigan-title.jpg
A group of Michigan State University researchers is exploring whether there's a link between artistic skill and other kinds of innovation. They think the findings could have implications for education, and even economic development.
AUDIO:
No doubt, at some point, you've had your head turned by some extraordinary person who's skilled at really different things. You may even know such a person. It's a phenomenon that fascinates Rex LaMore.
"There are chemists plus the poet," he says, "an artist plus the physicist, a musician plus a mathematician..."
Recently, it's become a part of LaMore's work. At MSU's Center for Community and Economic Development in Lansing, he's searching for a link between exposure to the arts and other kinds of abilities.
"What we're trying to do is discover if there is an empirical relationship between your arts and cultural capacity--your arts and creative experiences--and your innovation in economic development as measured by businesses formed, patents generated or jobs created," he says.
The study is called "Arts and Creativity in the Innovative Workforce."
A couple of LaMore's research partners are among the more compelling examples of the idea. Visiting the East Lansing home of Bob and Michele Root-Bernstein is kind of like dropping by a cozy art gallery. A unique, colorful collection of art brightens the walls. Several are Bob's own paintings and mixed media creations from over the years. He describes his approach in one piece.
"As the piece moves up, the shapes keep changing, forcing the other shapes to change, and eventually what I do is move from this very block-like thing at the bottom up to actually faces interfacing with each other," he explains.
After hearing its title--"Building Blocks of Life 3"--you may not be surprised to learn that Root-Bernstein juggles his artistic passion with his day-to-day responsibilities as a physiologist on the MSU faculty. Both science and art have animated the life of this MacArthur Foundation scholar since childhood. Root-Bernstein has studied the dynamics of creativity for years, compiling much of what he knows in a book he co-wrote with his wife, Michele, who, like her husband, has diverse talents. In her case, she's a historian and a poet. The book is called "Sparks of Genius, The 13 thinking tools of the world's most creative people." He says scientists in particular are often polymaths--skilled at diverse disciplines.
They are very, very often poets and dramatists and uh, novelists and painters and sculptors and anything you can imagine. Virtually every Nobel prize winner has some kind of artistic activity like this, along with their profession," he says.
Root-Bernstein, LaMore and others are busy surveying large groups of relatively successful people--MSU and Michigan Tech engineering faculty, Michigan's "21st Century Jobs Fund" recipients and MSU Honors College graduates. They're asking about past and present involvement in art and crafts--and compiling the results. LaMore says they could have policy implications in both education and economic development.
"And so if we want inventive and creative people in Michigan, we need to create an environment that provides for that, and that may require both good science and math studies, but also that good exposure to arts and creative expressions."
Root-Bernstein has already seen enough to make him confident time will reveal a connection. He's already anticipating the next big question.
"Where the effect comes in. Is this a lifetime experience where you
have to do it starting in early elementary school and constantly have
activities? Private lessons? And so we don't know where to implement the policies. I don't know whether schools are, in fact, the best place to put all of the money," he says.
At some point, Root-Bernstein expects a discussion of where investment in creativity is most beneficial. That debate may inch closer after release of the group's findings this fall.
reWorking Michigan
For more on job creation and workforce evolution in Michigan, visit WKAR.org/reworkingmichigan