When Brendan Kinkade was a young kid growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, he wanted to know how things work — a concept he now refers to as “practical physics.” At the time, though, the pursuit of practical physics translated into completely taking apart and then reassembling motorbike engines on his back patio. “Every screw and washer had a place, and if you deconstruct things, you have to know how they go back into place,” says Kinkade. “It taught me to be systematic and process-oriented. And to understand that there are many pieces that make up the whole.”