Growing up, my brother could always draw much better than I ever could. I remember once when we were on a vacation, it had been super-hot and we were stuck in the car. He would always have a sketchbook so he started drawing. As I was gazing out the window counting the seconds until we went under the next overpass for that half second of shade, Jamie nudged me and threw his sketchbook at me.

I looked at the open page to what he had drawn. It was two bullets, sitting on lawn chairs under an umbrella and with some drinks. There were huge droplets dripping off of them. I looked at him and said in an exhausting voice, “Dude, I’m sweatin’ bullets.” We both started laughing and it made the trip a little more tolerable. This has always been, to me, a great example of creativity and artistic talent.

Artistry and creativity really go hand in hand. Sure, you have to be artistic to draw or sculpt, but you need to be creative to come up an original concept. Otherwise, we would be surrounded by sculptures of rocks and detailed drawings of blobs. Both of which, by the way, I excel at.  Every great idea has grown out of a seed of creativity. It may be a creative way to solve a problem or a creative way to achieve a goal. These are always the beginning of an artistic solution.

So many times I have heard a skill or a field as being ‘an art’. I have heard sales, welding, and debating as ‘an art’. But, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say ‘engineering as an art’.  I truly feel that engineering is the application of creativity and so by definition, isn’t engineering truly an art? An engineer is either given or is commissioned to devise a concept. It is up to them to take that and make it a reality. Engineers have been given a bad rap of lacking imagination, but I totally disagree. To take a concept and apply standards and laws and make something out of nothing takes immense amounts of imagination.

It is important for any artist to have the right tools to create. The same goes for engineers; they just have a different set. CAM, CAD, FEA these are just some of the names of the tools in an engineer’s toolbox. Instead of a pallet, they have a design field. Instead of an easel they have a (often messy) desk. But in the end, like an artist, the engineer will step back from what they have created and say, “This will work.”

So a few years ago I sent my brother one of my “pieces”. It was a machined and polished three sided piece of aluminum with the engraving Illegitimi non Carborundum. It wasn’t as cute as perspiring ammunition, but we both laughed.