We have to wonder what we’d do without Rebecca Henderson, Wray Ward’s own contemplative, curious copywriter and dreamer. Rebecca, a self-described lorem ipsum alchemist whose personal art practice explores humor as the humble messenger of truth, wowed at CreativeMornings Charlotte’s June event. I was in the audience for her talk, part of a series on Wonder.

Surrounded by towers of colorful plastic bricks shaped into some of the world’s most iconic architectural wonders (part of Discovery Place Science’s Towers of Tomorrow with LEGO® Bricks exhibit), I listened, equally absorbed and distracted by the personal images and memories the words invoked — from listening to my dad’s stories of swimming past the waves to touch the sky wall, to counting spattered stars on a quiet stretch of highway somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In particular, one line from Rebecca’s talk moved me:

“When imagination did not satisfy, I had to wonder.”

That’s why, a few days after the CreativeMornings event, I sat down with my fellow wordsmith to get at the meaning of those words and what they have to do with marketing.

Imagination and creativity: are they the same?

RH: I think everyone has the same potential for imagination.

Creativity, on the other hand, comes after a certain amount of practice. Anyone has the ability to be creative, but you have to harness your imagination to actually create something. Otherwise, it’s just daydreaming.

Imagination is creativity on vacation.

What about wonder? Is it just a constructive breed of imagination?

RH: Well, if imagination is creativity on vacation, wondering puts that creativity back to work. Wonder is the fuel for living. It grounds us in the possibility of our experience.

I think imagination often exists tangentially to reality, while wonder is the reward of curiosity. And curiosity is a reality-driven exploration of possibility. In that sense, “wondering” lets us keep one foot in each of two worlds — imagined and real. Wondering is what sparks my creativity. The existence of a question invites my artistic curiosity.

Define wonder.

RH: To wonder is to allow the creative ideation and entertaining of multiple possibilities while considering all perceivable influences. Sounds kind of technical and magical. I like it!

Did you get to wonder today?

RH: I truly wonder all day. As a copywriter, I have to have a heightened sense of empathy and understanding of the audience, who isn’t always like me. And being able to wonder what it’s like to be someone else helps me develop messaging that’s more accurate and effective.

We just finished an internal review of a campaign proposal for a client that’s becoming more willing to push the envelope. We followed their lead and developed a few riskier options. Not only did I get to wonder throughout the proposal work, I also had the excitement of wondering what the client’s reaction would be.

In your talk, you said art brings knowing and feeling together. What did you mean?

RH: For someone who enjoys language as much as I do, I also recognize the fact that some things are so deep within our human understanding, we have to express them in a nonverbal or at least not directly verbal way. For me, successful expression leads to a universal understanding that can only be summarized by what we call might call “art.” But art isn’t just paintings and sculptures. It’s any cultural product that expresses the overlap between knowing and feeling.