Barrie Mowatt has a long and accomplished history as an educator, philanthropist, and entrepreneur opening the Buschlen Mowatt Fine Art gallery in 1979. Barrie is the visionary behind the Vancouver Biennale Open Air Museum, where he combines his passion for art, education and community service in exhibitions that bring great art to public spaces where people live, work, play and transit, free for all to enjoy, explore and be inspired by. Barrie is also the founder of the Celebration of Hope Foundation, co-founder of Taste the Nation, and the Buschlen Mowatt Scholarship Program at Arts Umbrella. Barrie received the Vancouver Business in Arts Award from the Vancouver Board of Trade, and the Ethics in Action Award, presented by Vancouver City Savings and the BC Work Ministry. He has twice been nominated for Western Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year in the category of socially responsible businesses.

How do you define creativity and apply it in your career? I never think about what creativity is, I just am. Creativity isn’t a tool that I pull out when I think I need it. It’s inherent in my attitude and the way I navigate the world.

Where do you find your best creative inspiration? On an airplane, when I’m off to explore my curiosity about the world. Its quiet space, when I can just be with me and shut everything else off. It helps that I can’t connect to WIFI on board!

What’s the one creative advice or tip you wish you’d known as a young person? Trust yourself.

Who would you like to hear speak at CreativeMornings? Barack Obama and Patch Adams

How would you describe what you do in a single sentence to a stranger? I turn the city into an open-air museum.

Where was the last place you travelled? In the last week I’ve been to the University of Washington to do a presentation for the department of Landscape Architecture, then I went to San Francisco for the opening of the new SFMOMA and the world premiere concert of a Dan Visconti composition, and then I flew to Winnipeg to tour of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.