0:00:00.876,0:00:02.665
So, when I was in art school,

0:00:02.665,0:00:04.084
I developed a shake in my hand,

0:00:04.084,0:00:07.116
and this was the straightest line I could draw.

0:00:07.116,0:00:09.767
Now in hindsight, it was actually good for some things,

0:00:09.767,0:00:12.956
like mixing a can of paint or shaking a Polaroid,

0:00:12.956,0:00:15.654
but at the time this was really doomsday.

0:00:15.654,0:00:19.271
This was the destruction of my dream of becoming an artist.

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The shake developed out of, really,

0:00:21.641,0:00:23.548
a single-minded pursuit of pointillism,

0:00:23.548,0:00:26.102
just years of making tiny, tiny dots.

0:00:26.102,0:00:29.996
And eventually these dots went from being perfectly round

0:00:29.996,0:00:33.684
to looking more like tadpoles, because of the shake.

0:00:33.684,0:00:35.929
So to compensate, I'd hold the pen tighter,

0:00:35.929,0:00:38.244
and this progressively made the shake worse,

0:00:38.244,0:00:40.516
so I'd hold the pen tighter still.

0:00:40.516,0:00:42.732
And this became a vicious cycle that ended up

0:00:42.732,0:00:44.956
causing so much pain and joint issues,

0:00:44.956,0:00:47.172
I had trouble holding anything.

0:00:47.172,0:00:50.557
And after spending all my life wanting to do art,

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I left art school, and then I left art completely.

0:00:55.168,0:00:57.628
But after a few years, I just couldn't stay away from art,

0:00:57.628,0:00:59.920
and I decided to go to a neurologist about the shake

0:00:59.920,0:01:02.780
and discovered I had permanent nerve damage.

0:01:02.780,0:01:05.509
And he actually took one look at my squiggly line,

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and said, "Well, why don't you just embrace the shake?"

0:01:08.932,0:01:11.542
So I did. I went home, I grabbed a pencil,

0:01:11.542,0:01:13.450
and I just started letting my hand shake and shake.

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I was making all these scribble pictures.

0:01:15.544,0:01:17.374
And even though it wasn't the kind of art

0:01:17.374,0:01:21.030
that I was ultimately passionate about, it felt great.

0:01:21.030,0:01:23.509
And more importantly, once I embraced the shake,

0:01:23.509,0:01:25.884
I realized I could still make art.

0:01:25.884,0:01:27.154
I just had to find a different approach

0:01:27.154,0:01:29.507
to making the art that I wanted.

0:01:29.507,0:01:32.347
Now, I still enjoyed the fragmentation of pointillism,

0:01:32.347,0:01:34.176
seeing these little tiny dots come together

0:01:34.176,0:01:36.157
to make this unified whole.

0:01:36.157,0:01:39.108
So I began experimenting with other ways to fragment images

0:01:39.108,0:01:41.286
where the shake wouldn't affect the work,

0:01:41.286,0:01:45.763
like dipping my feet in paint and walking on a canvas,

0:01:45.763,0:01:49.461
or, in a 3D structure consisting of two-by-fours,

0:01:49.461,0:01:54.924
creating a 2D image by burning it with a blowtorch.

0:01:54.924,0:01:58.268
I discovered that, if I worked on a larger scale and with bigger materials,

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my hand really wouldn't hurt,

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and after having gone from a single approach to art,

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I ended up having an approach to creativity

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that completely changed my artistic horizons.

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This was the first time I'd encountered this idea

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that embracing a limitation could actually drive creativity.

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At the time, I was finishing up school,

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and I was so excited to get a real job and finally afford new art supplies.

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I had this horrible little set of tools, and I felt like

0:02:27.405,0:02:29.515
I could do so much more with the supplies

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I thought an artist was supposed to have.

0:02:32.047,0:02:34.252
I actually didn't even have a regular pair of scissors.

0:02:34.252,0:02:36.764
I was using these metal shears until I stole a pair

0:02:36.764,0:02:39.012
from the office that I worked at.

0:02:39.012,0:02:41.944
So I got out of school, I got a job, I got a paycheck,

0:02:41.944,0:02:43.598
I got myself to the art store,

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and I just went nuts buying supplies.

0:02:46.712,0:02:48.340
And then when I got home, I sat down

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and I set myself to task to really try to create something

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just completely outside of the box.

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But I sat there for hours, and nothing came to mind.

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The same thing the next day, and then the next,

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quickly slipping into a creative slump.

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And I was in a dark place for a long time, unable to create.

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And it didn't make any sense, because I was finally able

0:03:11.694,0:03:16.068
to support my art, and yet I was creatively blank.

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But as I searched around in the darkness,

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I realized I was actually paralyzed by all of the choices

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that I never had before.

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And it was then that I thought back to my jittery hands.

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Embrace the shake.

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And I realized, if I ever wanted my creativity back,

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I had to quit trying so hard to think outside of the box

0:03:37.256,0:03:39.972
and get back into it.

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I wondered, could you become more creative, then,

0:03:42.058,0:03:44.956
by looking for limitations?

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What if I could only create with a dollar's worth of supplies?

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At this point, I was spending a lot of my evenings in --

0:03:52.410,0:03:55.183
well, I guess I still spend a lot of my evenings in Starbucks —

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but I know you can ask for an extra cup if you want one,

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so I decided to ask for 50.

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Surprisingly, they just handed them right over,

0:04:02.567,0:04:04.555
and then with some pencils I already had,

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I made this project for only 80 cents.

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It really became a moment of clarification for me

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that we need to first be limited

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in order to become limitless.

0:04:16.199,0:04:18.207
I took this approach of thinking inside the box

0:04:18.207,0:04:20.110
to my canvas, and wondered what if, instead of

0:04:20.110,0:04:23.439
painting on a canvas, I could only paint on my chest?

0:04:23.439,0:04:26.023
So I painted 30 images, one layer at a time,

0:04:26.023,0:04:27.223
one on top of another,

0:04:27.223,0:04:31.723
with each picture representing an influence in my life.

0:04:31.723,0:04:34.375
Or what if, instead of painting with a brush,

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I could only paint with karate chops? (Laughter)

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So I'd dip my hands in paint,

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and I just attacked the canvas,

0:04:40.023,0:04:42.732
and I actually hit so hard that I bruised a joint in my pinkie

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and it was stuck straight for a couple of weeks.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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Or, what if instead of relying on myself,

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I had to rely on other people

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to create the content for the art?

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So for six days, I lived in front of a webcam.

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I slept on the floor and I ate takeout,

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and I asked people to call me and share a story with me

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about a life-changing moment.

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Their stories became the art

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as I wrote them onto the revolving canvas.

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(Applause)

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Or what if instead of making art to display,

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I had to destroy it?

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This seemed like the ultimate limitation,

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being an artist without art.

0:05:30.188,0:05:32.736
This destruction idea turned into a yearlong project

0:05:32.736,0:05:34.089
that I called Goodbye Art,

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where each and every piece of art had to be destroyed after its creation.

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In the beginning of Goodbye Art, I focused on

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forced destruction, like this image of Jimi Hendrix,

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made with over 7,000 matches.

0:05:45.808,0:05:46.974
(Laughter)

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Then I opened it up to creating art that was destroyed naturally.

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I looked for temporary materials,

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like spitting out food --

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(Laughter) —

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sidewalk chalk

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and even frozen wine.

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The last iteration of destruction

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was to try to produce something that didn't actually exist in the first place.

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So I organized candles on a table, I lit them, and then blew them out,

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then repeated this process over and over with the same set of candles,

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then assembled the videos into the larger image.

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So the end image was never visible as a physical whole.

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It was destroyed before it ever existed.

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In the course of this Goodbye Art series,

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I created 23 different pieces

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with nothing left to physically display.

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What I thought would be the ultimate limitation

0:06:43.176,0:06:46.104
actually turned out to be the ultimate liberation,

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as each time I created,

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the destruction brought me back to a neutral place

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where I felt refreshed and ready to start the next project.

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It did not happen overnight.

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There were times when my projects failed to get off the ground,

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or, even worse, after spending tons of time on them

0:07:01.800,0:07:04.312
the end image was kind of embarrassing.

0:07:04.312,0:07:07.032
But having committed to the process, I continued on,

0:07:07.032,0:07:09.043
and something really surprising came out of this.

0:07:09.043,0:07:12.009
As I destroyed each project,

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I was learning to let go,

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let go of outcomes, let go of failures,

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and let go of imperfections.

0:07:20.875,0:07:23.304
And in return, I found a process of creating art

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that's perpetual and unencumbered by results.

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I found myself in a state of constant creation,

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thinking only of what's next

0:07:32.056,0:07:34.952
and coming up with more ideas than ever.

0:07:34.952,0:07:37.437
When I think back to my three years away from art,

0:07:37.437,0:07:40.688
away from my dream, just going through the motions,

0:07:40.688,0:07:44.440
instead of trying to find a different way to continue that dream,

0:07:44.440,0:07:47.640
I just quit, I gave up.

0:07:47.640,0:07:51.256
And what if I didn't embrace the shake?

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Because embracing the shake for me

0:07:52.453,0:07:55.093
wasn't just about art and having art skills.

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It turned out to be about life, and having life skills.

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Because ultimately, most of what we do

0:08:02.039,0:08:07.611
takes place here, inside the box, with limited resources.

0:08:07.611,0:08:11.280
Learning to be creative within the confines of our limitations

0:08:11.280,0:08:15.359
is the best hope we have to transform ourselves

0:08:15.359,0:08:19.224
and, collectively, transform our world.

0:08:19.224,0:08:23.392
Looking at limitations as a source of creativity

0:08:23.392,0:08:26.248
changed the course of my life.

0:08:26.248,0:08:27.939
Now, when I run into a barrier

0:08:27.939,0:08:31.048
or I find myself creatively stumped,

0:08:31.048,0:08:32.602
I sometimes still struggle,

0:08:32.602,0:08:34.696
but I continue to show up for the process

0:08:34.696,0:08:38.193
and try to remind myself of the possibilities,

0:08:38.193,0:08:42.788
like using hundreds of real, live worms to make an image,

0:08:42.788,0:08:47.175
using a pushpin to tattoo a banana,

0:08:47.175,0:08:53.198
or painting a picture with hamburger grease.

0:08:53.198,0:08:55.052
(Laughter)

0:08:55.052,0:08:56.659
One of my most recent endeavors

0:08:56.659,0:09:00.103
is to try to translate the habits of creativity that I've learned

0:09:00.103,0:09:03.287
into something others can replicate.

0:09:03.287,0:09:07.144
Limitations may be the most unlikely of places

0:09:07.144,0:09:10.538
to harness creativity, but perhaps

0:09:10.538,0:09:14.208
one of the best ways to get ourselves out of ruts,

0:09:14.208,0:09:18.111
rethink categories and challenge accepted norms.

0:09:18.111,0:09:21.970
And instead of telling each other to seize the day,

0:09:21.970,0:09:25.933
maybe we can remind ourselves every day

0:09:25.933,0:09:28.447
to seize the limitation.

0:09:28.447,0:09:29.914
Thank you.

0:09:29.914,0:09:35.191
(Applause)