Phil Hansen zealously pursued a style of art known as pointillism, in which complex images are created with thousands of tiny dots and lines created one at a time. In creating these images, pressing a writing instrument down tens of thousands of times, he caused permanent nerve damage in his hand, causing it to shake uncontrollably.
“Eventually these dots came from being perfectly round to looking more like tadpoles,” says Hansen, who will be presenting the MPI keynote “Embrace the Shake: Transforming Limitations into Opportunities” at IMEX America, Sept. 10-12 in Las Vegas. “So to compensate I would hold the pen tighter and this would progressively make the shake worse. I’d hold the pen tighter still and this became a vicious cycle that made the pain and the shaking worse.”
This led Hansen to drop out of art school. He supported himself as an X-ray technician, but eventually decided to see a neurologist, who confirmed that the nerve damage was permanent, but also that it was not an insurmountable barrier to building an art career.
“Why don’t you just embrace the shake?” the doctor asked Hansen. That led to a moment of epiphany, and also led to his role as something of a messenger for a simple concept he discovered when he started creating hundreds of works of art that could be created by a person with a shaky hand—like dipping his feet in paint and walking on a canvas.
“I ended up with a different approach to creativity that significantly changed my artistic horizons,” Hansen says. “This was when I first encountered this idea that actually embracing a limitation could drive creativity. Limitations can become liberations.”
He began intentionally placing limitations on his art projects—such as images he created on paper coffee cups, with a total budget of 80 cents for materials. Disposable art, even art he destroyed immediately after completing it, came next.
The burst of creativity has led to artistic success for Hansen. His breakthrough work was a time-lapse video of a two-day project called “Influence,” in which he painted 30 pictures on his chest, one over the other, each representing an influence in his life. After it was completed, he peeled the image off. The video has been streamed nearly 2 million times.
He has also created self-destructing pieces of art such as images made with a pin on a banana skin, which disappeared as the banana aged, as well as a sculpture of Jimi Hendrix made of matches and lit when the last match was in place.
Recognition has included being chosen as the official artist of the 51st Grammy Awards in 2008.
MPI will be providing many educational opportunities at IMEX America, Sept. 10-12 in Las Vegas, beginning with Smart Monday, powered by MPI on Sept. 9. Keynote presentations will include Phil Hansen on transforming limitations into opportunities, Four Day Weekend on using improv in the workplace, Michelle Gielan on fueling success through optimism and Jessie States on outside-the-box icebreakers. Learn more at mpi.org/imex-america.
