Radical Openness.

Today’s Marketing Cookie is a call to challenge your assumptions and embrace new perspectives.

The dot com bubble had popped in the early 2000’s, our tech clients were dropping like flies, and I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest, trying to avoid laying off any of our team members. It was the hardest hard work I’ve ever had to do and it's when I lost whatever precious hair I had left on my head. It was during this time that my wife wanted us to go to the museum of modern art while we were down in New York, visiting her parents. So we did.

I was inspired by some of the pieces we saw until we entered the section that featured the minimalist art. I rounded the corner and there it was. One entire wall of the gallery was dedicated to these three massive black frames that contained nothing whatsoever. Oh, there were canvasses inside each of the three frames, and except for a very thin outline of color on the outer edge of each canvas, they were completely white. Yeah, nothing. 

I felt my neck turn nuclear red as a warmth of rage started pumping through my feelings factory. With as hard as I was working every day and night to keep our thirty-two employees from joining the ranks of an unemployment line, this blankety-blank artist gets to be famous for framing three giant blank canvasses and call it “art”. I pointed at the huge wall of nothing with both hands and declared to my wife, “This is not art.” 

I quickly searched “three blank canvases at the MoMA” on Google this morning and it didn’t take long to find the “Primary Light Group: Red, Green, Blue” by Jo Baer (1964–65) which is estimated to be worth about $1 million dollars. All those feelings rushed back to me today and I asked the cat sitting next to me, “How can this be?” 

As quickly as today’s fortune rekindled the feeling of being miffed about what I regarded as unremarkable laziness by an artist that I decided doesn’t deserve an entire wall of a museum, it also caused me to realize how completely closed minded I was and still am. But why? Have I not evolved at all in the last 20 years? 

Okay so my reaction to the art on that day might have reflected something about my own struggles and insecurities during that time. But I still feel trapped in a rigid mindset about this art, and remain convinced that hard work, skill and visible results are the only acceptable indicators of success. 

Yet, this was an artist who had found a way to express creativity in the starkest, most unconventional manner, challenging my very definition of what creativity can be. Is it art? My frustration today is not about the question of art, but my inability to question myself and see beyond the conventional path I so desperately cling on to. How many other "blank canvases" I have ignored in my life and work, simply because they didn't fit my preconceived notions of value and effort.

Just as Jo Baer’s minimalist art continues stirring a whirlwind of emotions and challenges my perspective, I believe it’s crucial to try and embrace the many ways creativity can manifest. Whether it's through unconventional art, innovative business strategies, or simply allowing myself the freedom to think differently, fostering creativity requires radical openness to new ideas and approaches. By stepping out of my comfort zone and shedding the rigid frameworks I’ve built, I hope I can better appreciate what today’s fortune means as it says, “Don't expect to find one right way to make yourself more creative.”