"But do you feel there's a fundamental difference in creativity between fine art and engineering?"

Well, there are certainly crossovers (directly) between fine art and engineering - the most obvious that I can think of is archetecture. But, I would think that there is a confluence, not between the disciplines, but within certain contexts of each.

To be a little more clear, there is more in common between the "average programmer" (somewhat mythical, maybe, but I've worked with a number of them) who simply takes his instructions and re-words them into a language the computer understands using well-known algorithms and things he learned in his CS studies, and the "average fine artist" who paints typical landscapes using standard techniques fine-tuned over hundreds of years of practice by both pioneers and "engineers" of art. If for no other reason than that they both serve as "conversion devices" - taking something from one expression, and repeating it in another form.

While most 'engineering' is considered stuffy, boring, mechanical, and formulaic by artists - the same could be said of many of the traditions of fine arts, especially when the "technical aspects of the art" are those which become a serious point of judgement.

I feel that, in the same vein, there is a lot in common between the artist who works in new territories and mediums and the engineer-as-architect, who is given a problem that has not been solved before, and has to go through great creative hoops to come to a solution. Let's not forget that having to actually sell a solution to a customer is an extremely creative process in and of its self. Not to dig on artists, but when they have to explain a work, they can pretty much make it up and no one would be the wiser - even the most knowledgable curator may not be able to distinguish between the cause and meaning coming before or after the work. Whereas, with engineering tasks, the more savvy the customer, the greater the length the engineer must go through to creatively sell the solution, both through typical activities such performance testing, etc., but also to explain why this novel technique will actually perform before it's ever been tried.

!c