At what point does creativity start?

[Kyle Harris]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt7-YnG0Mhw

I've been watching the videos posted on youtube regarding the construction of Castle Stuart.

Hearing Jim Wagner discuss the construction method and using the grasses by "chunking" really got my creative juices flowing and I immediately made some bunker sketches and applied the "style" I had created to the hole I posted on George Pazin's Lido contest thread. It looks good and I will post in short order.

However, I'm not sure if I merely copied an idea and applied to my own design idea or if I truly created something original.

I definitely like the look, but certainly can't claim it as my own... however, perhaps the process of merging construction style with application in the field is the fountainhead of creativity?

So the question here is, am I being creative?

[Tom_Doak]

Kyle:

Creativity and originality are two different things.

Creativity starts whenever you get an idea and adapt it for your own use.  It may be derivative of something else you've seen, so it's not really original, but if it gets your juices flowing and it inspires a good result, that's creative.

I happened to visit Chambers Bay yesterday morning prior to my flight out of Seattle, and who showed up to give me a tour of the property but Robert Trent Jones Jr. himself.  I listened smilingly as he described the idea behind his "ribbon" tees which are all interconnected short grass from the previous green, and about trying to convince the client not to have any par listed on the scorecard.  He was genuinely excited by these ideas, so does it matter if they have been discussed and used before, even very recently?    I don't think it does, as long as he goes out and makes the golf course better.

That said, this "chunking" phenomenon is getting old now and everybody claims to be the first to come up with it.  Gil and I did a little of that on the back nine at High Pointe many years ago; I heard of the idea from Eb Steineger, who was the superintendent at Pine Valley for about 40 years.  Don't know where he got it from, but it really doesn't matter.

[Eric Pevoto]

Jim Wagner gives credit to the Valentines.

[Peter Pallotta]

Kyle
The answer is "yes"; and, if you don't mind some unsolicited advice, please don't ever waste any more time wondering whether you're being creative or not. In fact, the only time you're likely not being creative is when you're asking yourself that very question. IMHO, if you're being attentive to that which genuinely interests and excites you, the creative process is surely under way, whether or not it manifests itself as a creative product right away, or only much later on.  I think one of the shames of our modern age is how narrow the definition of creativity has become: if it's not one of the traditional arts, we seem not to value or even to seek out that flowing, attentive, engaged attitude that is the well-spring of all creative living, and thus of all creative work.  In other words, just keep doing what you're doing.
 
Sorry for the ramble...but actually, now that I'm at it: the second thing you should never worry about ever again is being original; it's a complete dead-end, IMHO, and the sure way to a complete lack of originality. I think it's the person who cares not a whit about whether he's being original or not who ends up doing the best and most original work. The examples are not hard to find: look at Tom D, who, through his writings made a very public choice very early on to honour the great architecture of the past. The result? Far from being seen as unoriginal, he was viewed as a breath of fresh air, and now as one of the very key players in the gca renaissance; and far from being seen as copies of some past architect's work, Pacific Dunes and Ballyneal etc are seen as the works of a true original.

I think far more important than any kind of originality is the personal artistic integrity needed to honour your own beliefs about what constitutes great work, especially in the face of the roadblocks and attacks you'll surely face along the way.    

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm trying to give you advice from way up high on some mountaintop; believe me, it's coming from way down low in the valley, as it's advice I've been trying to follow myself for years.

Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Peter:

Thanks for the compliment, but I do spend a fair amount of time worrying about being original ... not so much in the field when designing a green or bunker, as in trying to choose projects which I think have an inherent number of features which will make them original.

Eric P:

Eb Steineger and Richie Valentine were working thirty miles apart for two generations, so it would be hard to guess which of them got the idea from the other, or whether both got it independently.

[Michael Dugger]

You spend a lot of time trying not to be pigeonholed, Tom.

We recognize...

Looking forward to seeing your next course with Maxwell clamshells!

[Tom_Doak]

Michael:

I just got back from the Renaissance Cup at Tumble Creek.  The bunkers there aren't clamshells, but they are smaller and simpler flashed-sand forms with nice lips, more reminiscent of maybe Winged Foot or Quaker Ridge (before they were fixed).

I thought it was some of the best work we have done in a long time.  The greens were lightning-fast but they worked fine.  More people should go and see that one if they can.

[Mike Nuzzo]

I'm not sure what Peter's background but he describes a very important point.  You can be creative all day long with everything you do - how you brush your teeth, what you choose for breakfast.....

I don't know how many words on this site are original, but they sure get used creatively.

If you remove your constraints you are left with creativity.  The more you remove the more creative you can be.
Copying a hole is the most constraning thing I could imagine.

[Jon Wiggett]

Tom D,

you say that you always try to give each project a portion of originality. I take that when you talk about making original type designs on paper that these are the more detailed type done after getting to know the site. As you work with the land does the land not help to produce this originalty and the ideas you have that you want to try out do you usually wait for an opportunity to impliment them or are there occasions where you kind of impose a design on the landsape?

[Dan Kelly]

I happened to visit Chambers Bay yesterday morning prior to my flight out of Seattle, and who showed up to give me a tour of the property but Robert Trent Jones Jr. himself.

I thought it was gonna be Michael Bamberger!

[Mike_Cirba]

Great artists steal,
Bad artists borrow.

[Dan Kelly]

Great artists steal.
Bad artists borrow.

[Rich Goodale]

Great artists steal.
Bad artists borrow.

Oh Master of Google, who actually said something very like that first?  The Plagiarism Police want to know, and I don't think it was Cirba.....

[Dan Kelly]

Google is unhelpful.

Good artists copy?

Lesser artists borrow?

Picasso?

Stravinsky?

Who knows?

I'll guess Shakespeare.

Or Cirba.

[Kyle Harris]

That's the hole concept I posted under George Pazin's Lido Contest Thread (it followed none of the rules, just posted it for the sake of critique). The original had more rounded bunkers that I had intended to be grass faced.

Something about the jagged edge that appears as though the bunker were cleft forth from the land by the hand of God "fits" other golf features better, IMO.

I am becoming more and more fond of harder angles in architecture. A roughly shaped pentagon green such as that offers many different connection and attack angles for hazards and approaches.

Thoughts?

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan, Mike, Richard:

'When you paint a landscape it should look like a plate' - Picasso.

I hope that helps clear things up.

Peter
(emoticon ommitted; in deference to you know who)