Bethel Creatives, no. 22: Dalton Dickerhoof

Savannah Mirabal
6 days ago
4 min read

Interview conducted by Savannah Mirabal in The Crossings’ series on creativity and diversity within Bethel University’s student body.  The heart behind this series is to explore creativity in a broader sense and to be encouraged and inspired by the creatives on our campus and the things that they are doing.  

Dalton Dickerhoof is a sophomore majoring in Psychology with a minor in English. While he is normally in his dorm hiding from the concept of a social life, one of Dalton's favorite spots on campus is the outdoor fireplace overlooking the pond outside the AC, especially during the summer months and occasionally near Christmas when the lights are set up. His hobbies consist of writing and drawing.

Creativity

How would you define creativity?

Creativity for Dalton is this: taking your art, ideas, and vision and adding them as a link in the endless chain of human inspiration. (He also believes this is why A.I could never make art. While someone working on commission or adapting another work is adding their own vision and voice to transform it, A.I. is merely approximating the work of others.) That being said, that is merely his pretentious opinion.

Dalton explained that this was one of the hardest questions to answer especially in the conversation on whether generative A.I. counts as art (which, it obviously doesn’t, as he will elaborate.) He said, there has been this pervasive myth recently that creativity had to be original. And while originality certainly is a good goal to strive for, he did not find it to be truly necessary for creativity. After all, what of adaptations of other’s work, or people working on commissions, are they not ‘creative’ based solely on originality? At risk of sounding horribly pretentious, it reminds Dalton of a quote from Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

How do you express your creativity?

Dalton mostly expresses his creativity through storytelling, whether it be writing stories, comics, scripts, or even stand-up comedy at times.

At what age did you discover your creative outlet?

According to Dalton, he was in the 2^nd grade when he first began writing. Him and a close friend, named Aidan, would write and draw short, illustrated books about themselves and their classmates and share them with the class. He emphasized that it was quite fun, and that, that same desire to make people laugh still drives his work to this day.

Do you have a routine? If so, what is it?

In terms of working on a new creative project, Dalton does have a routine. It begins with a spontaneous burst of inspiration, followed by a period of research. He then starts the project, only to become distracted by an entirely different creative idea. This cycle continues—repeating itself—until he eventually returns to and completes the original project. Dalton shared that the frustration of having one idea interrupted by many others is one that many creative individuals probably relate to.

Creative Preferences & Inspiration

Do you gravitate toward a specific genre?

Surprisingly, Dalton does not seem to gravitate towards a specific genre. Though he is mostly known for his comedic stories here at Bethel. He has written in various genres from science fiction, dystopic fiction, fantasy, horror, etc. Most recently, he has found himself pulling towards Murder Mysteries.

Where do you find inspiration?

Interestingly, Dalton said that it is strange enough to suggest that trying to be inspired is impossible. "Inspiration strikes at random. Inspiration really is everywhere, you just need to wait around until it metaphorically slaps you in the face." As he hinted to it being often around 3 am. That being said, there are things he does where he often found himself being inspired by. Thing such as nature, color schemes, stories by authors before him, things going on in his own life, and ancient mythology are common inspirations.

Balancing Academics and Creativity

How do you balance your workload with being creative?

As Dalton puts it... "Horribly."

How do you explore creativity on campus?

Recently, Dalton has found himself working on a lot of creative projects with the theatre department on Bethel's campus. Every year, he has participated in their 24 hour theatre show, in which writers, directors, and actors were asked to write and perform entire plays in only 24 hours. He's participated the last two years, and this year especially his play was well received (It was this nature documentary parody about Bethel Student’s dating lives.) They loved it so much that the theatre department later asked Dalton to write another play which he is not allowed to share because of spoilers.

Words of Wisdom

Dalton encourages people to understand that their creative abilities are always valuable,

“Art does not need to be good to be valuable. There are many who only view art as valuable if it has some technical mastery that meets their arbitrary standard. But I would argue that the point of art is not the end product, but the joy and effort involved in the production.”