About Matt Desing

Author & Creative Guide

About Matt Desing

I am an academic, an artist, and a writer on a journey to become more creative and gain a better understanding of the place of creativity in society. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and have taught college-level courses for more than 20 years. I paint, write fiction and non-fiction, and love to travel.

My adventures in creativity began with my large family and my rural upbringing in northern Minnesota. Arts and crafts were the joys of my childhood, along with swimming in the abundant lakes of my home state. My parents became involved in an international learning organization when I was young, and soon we were hosting foreign exchange students from around the world. I eventually became a high-school exchange student myself and spent a year living and studying in a Spanish territory in northern Africa. The combination of rootedness in a small community and the expansiveness of international experiences was fertile ground for creativity. 

My imagination ran wild as I began my college experience. The beneficiary of a broad Liberal Arts education, I explored languages, cultures, history, and politics. I discovered a love for the historical period of the Middle Ages and pursued master’s and doctoral degrees in Spanish literature focusing on the medieval period. I completed my Ph.D., eventually became an associate professor with tenure, and have been teaching and researching in my field for more than two decades. 

I have always considered myself creative and have engaged in imaginative endeavors my entire life. Several years ago, I developed a personal and scholarly interest in the topic of creativity and began researching it from a variety of vantage points. This project is an outgrowth of that interest and research. 

About Matt Desing Creative

This website is virtual space built to explore the topic of creativity. 

There are many ways to approach creativity, from the realm of cognitive science, to the study of the topic in historical, cultural, and economic frameworks, to self-help-oriented explorations. My objective is to examine the topic from a variety of perspectives.

My understanding of creativity is informed by my scholarly training, but my approach in this venue is personal and non-academic. Some posts in the blog examine creativity in very general terms (like the effects of emotion on creative thinking broadly speaking) and other posts analyze very specific applications of creativity (such as infusing holiday decorating with increased creativity). I bring tools to my examinations from history, cultural studies, psychology, business, cognitive science, and pedagogy, but my aim is to address a non-specialist audience by keeping my writing free from scholarly jargon. Beyond this, I often offer observations and examples from my own personal experience.

My main goal is for you as the reader/user to be able to discover more about your creative potential, no matter how imaginative you think you are (or are not) at the present. This isn’t an exclusive space for academic researchers in the various fields of creativity studies, nor is it an elite haven for those whom society deems to be at the pinnacle of an artistic career. Rather, this is a place for everyone, regardless of their training, profession, or artistic ability, to explore and grow in their personal creativity.