Why Man Creates

When I was a freshman in the art & design core program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, we were all required to take a course called Creative Sources from an eccentric white haired professor named Stanley Witmeyer. Stan was full of a childlike enthusiasm and wonder that sometimes made him seem a little like a kindergarten teacher, or a more animated version of Mr. Rodgers. Besides assigning us little projects that were designed to get us thinking beyond the predictable and common, he sometimes showed us films. One that has stuck with me all these years was a film made by Saul Bass, entitled "Why Man Creates". It was a series of humorous animated skits, following mankind through history, looking at famous moments of creative genius. At the end, there was a more serious narrated passage, considering humanity and our inexplicable need to create. The narrator refers to expressions of creativity, and alludes to soaring achievements, commenting that "some have spoken eloquently", then shifting to a shot of angry inner city graffiti, says "some have been almost mute." Thinking of that flushes my sinuses with tears and makes my chest swell with emotion. "Some have been almost mute." So much pain in that phrase. I think of having so much inside without the means to articulate.