Todd Siler, a renowned multimedia artist, helps individuals and groups fine-tune and resolve goals through a creative process utilizing scissors, paste, crayons, found objects and intuition.
Siler, the first visual artist to receive a PhD in interdisciplinary studies in psychology from MIT in 1986, is the inventor of Metaphorming.
Metaphorms are symbolic models that visualize and give form to ideas. They can stimulate inspiration and pour fresh insights into old conundrums.
“Think of all the connective tools we use: metaphors, analogies, similes, puns — everything that connects one thing to another,” Siler says. “You can repurpose every single thing in our environment as a metaphor.
“A Metaphorm is literally anything you see around you that can express an idea, a concept, a theory, knowledge, an experience or data in a personally meaningful, relevant and useful way,” he says.
Personal relevance is key.
“It’s like a door that invites you to enter and asks the question, ‘What can we learn from this?’”
Employees who sit for hours at a conference table debating an upcoming project or new strategy understand that verbal duels, while useful, have their limits.
Siler says Metaphorms offer a viable alternative.
“Metaphorming combines art and science, and is a natural form of creative learning,” he says. “We are able to look at things from another person’s perspective and connect.”
Siler has presented Metaphorming demonstrations to CEOs, Fortune 500 companies, start-up business and students all over the world. He coached world leaders at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The fact that his artwork hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and in private collections elicits a mildly appreciative shrug.
“Metaphorming repurposed my art, and incorporated it with science in a confluent way,” he says. “Before, I’d go to museums but never talk to people who were trying to evolve or change their lives or companies.
“Now my art has another voice, another presence and extension. People realize that what they do in their lives can be every bit as inventive and engaging as the art hanging on the walls. This is the joy.”
Siler says that images, poetry, drawings, color and sounds — whatever tools compose a person’s Metaphorm — are multidimensional gateways that welcome “All Representations of Thought,” his acronym for “art.”
“If I’m a mathematician and I love numbers, I should be able to use that language in such a way that the poet goes, ‘I get this. It touches me.’ Metaphorms contain objects, emotions, and all the richness of what’s inside us.
“It’s a way of giving form to visualization; making the intangible tangible,” he says. “You move beyond your bubble and enable someone who’s not in your field to say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you felt that way, where you were coming from, and why didn’t you say that in the first place?’”
While most participants don’t view their Metaphorms as frame-worthy or on a par with Rodin’s “The Thinker,” that’s not the point. The endgame is solving an elusive problem or goal.
Individual Metaphorms often evolve over time. Objects are added and subtracted, instinctively or intrinsically. A physical symbol that initially meant one thing morphs into something else.
Ultimately, this explorative dive disarms conceptual paralysis and leads to innovative resolutions.
Todd Lael Silverstein was born in August, 1953, in Mineola, Long Island. Raised in a Jewish household, his mother was a classically trained pianist and his father was a biomedical researcher.
“My dad changed his name from Silverstein to Siler after WW II due to all the anti-Semitism here,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll ever shake anti-Semitism, which is so tragic.
“Jews have to get to that point where we can actually see ourselves grow our knowledge and create something that’s sustainable — because I’m not politically sanguine about our future.”
Siler lived in Israel for a year during high school. A transformative experience, he wrote about it in his book Breaking the Mind Barrier, a synthesis of art and science.
“Large excavations had begun around the Western Wall, which gave me a deeper understanding of my Jewish heritage. I loved Israel.”
Siler and his son shared their Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel on June 25, 2011.
While pursuing his undergrad degree at Bowdoin College in Maine, he apprenticed with American artist Leonard Baskin.
The talented visual artist was accepted at MIT, an ostensibly unlikely pairing until he explains why science and art are perfectly compatible.
“When I did my doctoral work at MIT, it was about understanding intuition and how we integrate our feelings, thoughts and actions literally in the heart of the brain,” he says.
“It’s not the left brain vs. the right brain. It’s the whole brain.
“Some people think, ‘Oh, I’m completely rational and disregard emotions,’ but they are wrong. Literally, the functional architecture of the brain is designed in such a way that emotions influence our learning, memory and all our key processes.”
PET scans, mirror imaging and a slew of other scientific tests verify this design.
Siler’s professional embrace of these two opposing fields exemplifies it.
In his 20s, he joined the art scene in SoHo that launched the careers of Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente and David Salle. “I was in the heart of that time and place,” he nods nostalgically.
Ronald Feldman, owner of the eponymous New York art gallery, championed Siler’s artwork for 40 years until his recent retirement. Feldman worked with Buckminster Fuller, Andy Warhol’s estate “and opened up whole new galaxies in the art world.”
Siler established the ArtScience program and movement; founded or co-founded several related foundations and companies; and has authored many books.
He also illustrated the Haggadah written by Rabbis Susan and Rick Rheins.
Siler, who moved to Denver around 1993, has been married to his wife Joan for 28 years. He is the father of one son and two stepchildren.
“I love to hike and the outdoors,” he says of the geographical leap. “Denver has grown in a beautiful way. There’s a desire to learn from one another here.”
Despite Siler’s ubiquitous prominence in the art-science movement and his acclaim as a visual artist, he prefers T-shirts to ties and is interested in everyone regardless of title or status.
He never mentions his IQ, which is probably off the charts. He doesn’t drop names unless the motive is gratitude. He’s an amiable, unpretentious guy with a remarkable brain.
Siler did an extensive study on the nature of genius in the early 1980s.
According to Wikipedia, the study spanned numerous disciplines to see what, if anything, creative people such as Albert Einstein (theoretical scientist) and Sergei Rachmaninoff (composer-pianist) have, or more importantly do, in common.
Siler, who recalls his analysis well, says he’s gained a new perspective on creative genius in the ensuing years.
“Genius is everywhere, every day, in everyone in every imaginable way,” he says.
“Think of all the levels of genius that humankind has produced. Look around your room at every single thing — from the pencil you’re holding to the chair your sitting in to the carpet to the building.
“Someone had an original idea, worked on it, evolved it, made innovations. Absolutely everything in our built environment started with a spark of genius.
“I have found this in all historical periods and cultures. It’s the essence of genius.”
Metaphorming, he says, ignites that innate spark.
“People construct their Metaphorms to the best of their abilities,” Siler says.
“Then they unpack the symbols and ideas; discuss their implications. You see a level of curiosity and wonder and creativity in this exchange that defines genius.”
Siler describes Metaphorms as a universal language that is translated and articulated by symbolic models in non-threatening environments. Age is irrelevant.
“Whether you’re five or 105, you can use these tools,” he says.
Young children in particular excel at Metaphorming, which he’s witnessed first hand.
“Kids are so imaginative in elementary school. That’s the time to reach them — before imagination shuts down.”
Siler is not asked, nor does he offer, to create a personal Metaphorm that captures the creator of Metaphorming.
“I’m very happy to synthesize,” he smiles.
Andrea Jacobs may be reached at andrea@ijn.com.
Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News