The Plentitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff

Afterimage, Jan-Feb, 2008 by Ilana Swerdlin

The Plentitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff, by Rich Gold/MIT Press/111 pp./$22.00 (hb)

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I am the typical twenty-first century version of a Renaissance person: I like a little bit of a lot of things in this culture of Flash websites, 10-second changing billboards, and the information overload we all talk about. The title of the book grabbed me right away, and I quickly identified with the author, Rich Gold, who is described in the book's press release as "a pure hybridized thinker in a world where monospecialties are the norm."

I thought this book would tell me to quit making art and go work in the rainforests. It didn't. A posthumous compilation of lectures, sketches, and notes, written in a conversational tone, it bordered on annoying to read. However, after I had finished the book, I realized the value and rarity of this tone and that it was conducive to higher comprehension and retention of information than usual.

This book answers the age-old artist's question of "Why make anything if everything has been done?" and the more current, "Why bring any more junk into the world?" Gold relates the artist's role to the rest of society and strengthens the cause for creativity and artmaking. His humor and logic raise valid points about the "Big Picture," which may bring answers to the smaller pictures we live in.

ILANA SWERDLIN is a mixed-media artist and an instructor at Medaille College in Buffalo, New York.