I recently completed a PhD in Art History and Education and have been immersed in research pertaining to creative risk-taking.  I now teach these concepts through adult art education workshops, both locally as well as abroad.  As I teach, I frequently refer to using one’s creative license.

In my research, I  found that artist and author Danny Gregory offers a powerful analogy.  He poses the question, “What if we treated driving like we treat the arts?”  Just imagine if it was assumed that people were either born to drive or not.  We would only encourage a select few to drive, and then only support those who showed a predisposition to driving, as it would be assumed that only those who could drive professionally should drive. Perhaps the numerous other persons would be redirected to do something “more useful to society” and should not be encouraged to drive. Gregory challenges us to imagine what it would be like if  all others would never be able to drive, wouldn’t be supported in their driving efforts, and therefore they would “just stand on the sidewalks and watch the traffic”.  How sad would that be? I encourage everyone to get out their artistic license and be creative in any manner they choose and start driving!!!