Patch Talk: A Conversation With Artist, Teacher, Designer Dick Patterson

Richard "Dick" Patterson is an expert on design — and by definition that means he is an expert on creativity as well.

That’s because in Patterson’s world, the two go hand-in-hand and one cannot exist without the other.

It’s a world he is willing to open up to others, and indeed, does, as both a teacher at the University of Tampa and at the International Academy of Design and Technology at Tampa.

His rapport with his students is such that he has shown his own work at “four or five art shows within the last year,” he said, “and all of them were with former students.”

One such student is Scott King, and it was at King’s “” Art Show on Feb. 14, at the James McCabe Theater in Valrico, that we met up with Patterson.

Patterson, who retired from a career in advertising and designs instruments out of "found objects," agreed to talk about his passion for design and creativity.

Brandon Patch: What is creativity?

• Patterson: Creativity is looking at something in a brand new way, even something that has been around for 100 years, but you look at it from a completely different perspective. I call that ‘clean-sheet’ design because it’s totally new, and that’s what I enjoy the most. What I like about it is it takes away all restrictions, all preconceived notions, so you start fresh and say, “Okay, alright, how am I going to do this?"

Brandon Patch: You create you own musical instruments. Why?

• Patterson: I like the aesthetic part of it, how they look, how they handle, how they feel, and they’ve got to work. They’ve got to be functional, otherwise it just does not fit with what design is all about.

Brandon Patch: What is design? How do you design your instruments?

• Patterson: Design is a matter of having an idea and rearranging the parts in an aesthetically beautiful way. Basically then it’s a matter of how do I want to attack a problem, and that’s going to be mentally trying to figure out what the (instrument) will sound like and how it’s going to function. Then it’s a matter of doing a bunch of drawings, which I usually change as I go along. I’m not a slave to a sketch. I modify things as I go along.

Brandon Patch: So, that’s design?

• Patterson: Basically every single thing that we touch had to be designed by someone and everybody designs themselves every day. What you pick out to wear, how you do your hair, the car you drive, the way you live. From one design in 1936 some 27 million Volkswagens were made, so how do you put a number on what that design was worth? You can’t even come up with a number for it.

Brandon Patch: Is everybody creative?

• Patterson: I think anybody can learn to be creative. A lot of people have trouble with it up front because they’re afraid to let go. They’re afraid to let themselves really be seen. And that kills it. The only way you can get somebody to be creative is through positive reinforcement. You have to let them break loose and go for it. Make them stretch. If you leave a kid in a room with a bunch of toys and a bunch of cooking utensils and miscellaneous stuff I don’t think he’s going to go for the toys. Basically he’s going to go for the shiny stuff and the stuff that makes the most noise. If you say, “Put that down, play with this, be quiet,” then basically you’re stifling creativity, and most people have it shut off on them by the time they’re seven or eight (because) it’s about trying to fit in the world that other people want you to fit into.

Brandon Patch: So, it’s about finding your own path.

• Patterson: I’m 70. I went to Burning Man in August, and I was with about 59,000 other people, like me, for a week, in the middle of the desert in the harshest conditions you can imagine. You’re at a dry lake bend, but the art, the music, the camaraderie was fantastic. I believe it’s the biggest creative event in the world . . . The stuff that I do people my age do not like at all.

Brandon Patch: When did you start designing?

• Patterson: I’ve been doing design work for well over 50 years. My first thing I designed, I was 14. It was a part of a machine for where my father worked. They used it and gave me a check for $25. I had fun and I got money and that’s what got me started.

Brandon Patch: Tell me about the instruments you design.

• Patterson: Pretty much I only do string instruments. I tried a couple wood ones, but it’s not my thing. I do experimental violins, guitars, banjoes, ukuleles, anything with strings. But I never do it the conventional way. In a lot of cases I use junk. In the art world it’s called “found objects.” The head of the banjo is actually a cheap lamp base. There’s an instrument, the Brazilian instrument berimbau, usually made out of wood and gourd. I used aluminum, a bike brake to affect pressure on the string, and a head roller from a sliding door. Is that enough junk?

Brandon Patch: Being so creative, and the world isn't always . . . 

• Patterson: I can deal in a non-creative world but basically it's not my world. What you do is  you restrain yourself. I'll give you an example, the Burning Man thing. When you're a Burner, and you get there, you're welcomed by somebody who says, "Welcome home." And at first it sounds ridiculous, because you're in the middle of the most desolate place in America. But what you're going to find within a day or two is that it is home. This (back here) is referred to as "the default world."

Brandon Patch: Do you worry about how people will react?

• Patterson: That's my whole revenge in life, I don't give a ripple of a s--t. I think that if you're going to set yourself free creatively you can't worry about the way somebody might react to something that you create. The only thing that bugs me is when I don't get a reaction. I don't care if it is positive or if it is negative, but goddamn it, you better notice."