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Artist and designer Misha Kahn grew up hustling his lakeshore Minnesotan neighbors with tin foil wrapped baked goods, sewing clothes and hanging with exchange student stragglers. A year of guzzling weird culture in Brussels set him on a path to study furniture design in school. Now, at the young age of 30, his career has snowballed and earned him a reputation in the art world as an exciting and provocative force working at the intersection of furniture and sculpture. Sewing and tin foil still included.

Furniture and interior designer Claudia Washington grew up in El Salvador during the civil war. It was not safe for her to play outside so she spent her days clipping pictures from architecture magazines and redesigning her bedroom. In college, she predicted whom she would marry from seeing a work of his art. Now, Claudia and Harry Washington are designing work for international clients and championing design in El Salvador through a design biennale, education, artisan collaborations and economic growth.

Artist, illustrator & author Lisa Congdon grew up being praised for hard work but not for creativity. She studied history in college, spent years as a classroom teacher, and didn’t even start dabbling in art until her early 30’s. At that time of internet nascency, Lisa was an early adopter sharing her work and getting positive feedback. It’s all blossomed into a thriving career, social media stardom, and solid relationships. Her recipe for success includes grit, hard work and NOT being a perfectionist.

This special Clever Extra, recorded live at RISD as the keynote presentation of Design Week RI, four creative thought leaders come together for a discussion on the power of creativity. As a social value, creativity often gets dismissed as “making things pretty” rather than being understood as the fundamental impulse and effort behind every creation. Here, with Panelists Rosanne Somerson, Sara Ossana, Umberto Crenca and Sophie Chien, we are discussing creativity as a core component of personal empowerment.

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic grew up in Germany, listening to punk rock and dreaming of building boats. In England, he trained in cabinet making at The John Makepeace School for Craftsman in Wood, and studied design at the Royal College of Art. Since starting his own studio in 1991 he’s designed several iconic pieces like Chair One for Magis, and the Mayday lamp for Flos. Even though he’s big time, he’s purposefully keeping his studio small so he can keep his hands and mind engaged in every project.

Design impresario Murray Moss grew up in a house his father engineered with a drinking fountain in the dining room. At 5, he redecorated his farmhouse bedroom with a Chinese motif. In college, after accidentally burning down his apartment with a fondue pot, he found his love of theatre. The ‘90s were all about MOSS, his Soho New York boutique that lit up the global high-design scene and paved the way for a new era of design as art. Cut to today: he’s a pedagogue, a retail consultant and as fabulous as ever.

Graphic designer Paula Scher grew up drawing pictures to escape a turbulent home life. Later, rebelling against suburban existence, she ventured to art school and became a hippie, and then art directed album covers in NYC. She’s been a partner at Pentagram since ‘91. In her ~50 years in the business she has blazed trails, upended boys’ clubs, committed “typographical blasphemy,” given form to the zeitgeist, and earned herself a reputation as one of the world’s most influential graphic designers.

Furniture & interior designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance moved from Paris to the “super boring” French countryside in his youth where he spent all day on his bicycle inventing new worlds in his mind. After a brief attempt at becoming a movie star, he found design. He came home from a trip to Morocco with both a baby, and a job designing a high profile restaurant (not with the same people.) Now based in Lisbon he’s designing for global brands and fixing problems through emotions and moments of sincerity.

Furniture designer Jeff Martin grew up in Vancouver, BC struggling with punctuation and hiding in a dilapidated abandoned boat. He spent his teenage years expressing himself through skateboarding and snowboarding. Following a devastating accident and subsequent slow recovery, he found his voice through writing and reconnected to his body through physical labor and making. Now he’s using his voice and hands to build community, as well as beautiful, inventive furniture. Also, he’s thinking of doing mushrooms (as furniture!).