Postcards in the Air : 30 DAYS ON A CREATIVE WALK

Thursday, November 13, 2025

30 DAYS ON A CREATIVE WALK

Collaged by M. M. from my cut-up watercolors

A group of friends sat at lunch recently. We were discussing the changes in ordinary things from earlier years to today. We noted the difference from clocks with hands to digital watches and the use of credit cards instead of paper money. Our comments began with how easy these changes have made our lives. Then we remembered our own childhood and our time raising children and how analog clocks and paper money helped teach time, fractions, and the value of money. Without a clock with hands how do you explain what time looks like, or what parts of an hour mean? Without paper money, how do you explain the value of money, setting budgets, and counting? Suddenly we were thinking of creative responses to our questions and we wondered how teachers now explain something that is so simple and so fundamental without using the tools we had.

We all are creative thinkers, every day. Every time we ask ourselves the question, "What if...?", we are using our creative thinking skills. Our culture tends to relegate creativity to a group of people who are artists, musicians, dancers, or writers, but we are all problem solvers. Scientists, inventors, cooks, plumbers, doctors, and all human beings employ creative thinking skills. Otherwise, we would all be still sitting around fires and living in caves. Oh, that took someone with a little creativity to figure those two actions out too.

30 Days of Creativity by D. W.

I recently gave a talk about creative thinking and presented the group with a set of exercises to show that they don't have to be an artist to be creative. We all have that creative drive within us. We just need to practice it. I hope you give these exercises a try.

1. An exercise that came from the Peace Corps. How many ways can you think of to use a tin can?

2. Take a walk and observe what is around you. Do you see a space in your neighborhood for a small park? What would you add to the space to make it an inviting place? If you walk in your downtown, is there a plaza that doesn't draw people in? What woul you do to change that plaza to make it a place where people want to congregate?

These two exercises are fun to do, and even more fun to do with other people. Creative thinking is often more productive in collaboration. Someone will almost always come up with a new idea. One of those AHA moments we all have.

30 Days of Creativity by F. C.

Rules for the next exercise:

There are NO Rules!

Take a blank calendar and in one of the squares once a day for a month, doodle, write, and use your imagination to fill the squares with whatever wanders through your mind that day. I hope you will be surprised at the end of the month with the results. If you don't like what you have made, you are becoming a more creative thinker. Being creative means dealing with failures and mistakes. Creative people learn to move past failures because they often fail. That's one of the pivotal points of creative thinking. What do you do with your failure? Start over? Reimagine what you made?

I often end up with watercolors that I don't like. My solution is to cut the watercolor into one-inch squares (there's a satisfaction in that act), toss them around together and make a new arrangement with the small squares. Several of my adaptions from ugly paintings have been selected for gallery shows. They have let me let go of that critical voice we all have.