After 30 years of opening their garden to neighbors, artist behind Riverside's painted trees and master gardener gift the property to California Baptist University.
Greetings to all you curators of clip art! Last week, we reverse-engineered the unassuming paperclip from a simple office tool into a muse for a series of playful and inventive exercises. What did you do on your mandatory break? Did you sculpt some corporate art or write a story from a paperclip’s perspective? Whatever you made between your deadlines, I hope the time you gave yourself to be creative held your day together a little better.
This week, our creative nudge might seem too obvious: clouds. I pride myself on finding interesting ways to transform anything into a creative exercise for this column. But cloud watching is inherently creative. This is something we've all done, a simple, whimsical pastime from childhood. No one needs to be told to look at clouds. They are endlessly fascinating and watchable.
But when was the last time you truly gave yourself a few intentional minutes to lie down, sit back, and stare at the sky? With the change of seasons, the skies over Riverside offer a dramatic, ever-shifting display of clouds at all times of day. It's time to return to this classic form of creative play with a more intentional gaze.
Clouds are a wonderful symbol for the creative process. Made of countless water droplets and a little dirt, they are a vast, formless collection of potential, all coalescing into something tangible and defined. In the same way, our best ideas often begin as an unorganized mist of thoughts and feelings before taking on a concrete shape.
Watch how a cloud can sometimes block the sun, casting a momentary shadow that forces us to pause. But then, as it moves away, it can disperse light in a soft, ethereal way, making the world glow with an entirely different kind of beauty. This dual nature—the ability to both obscure and illuminate—is a useful metaphor for the challenges and breakthroughs in our own creative work.
From a higher perspective, clouds take on even more meaning. From the window of an airplane, we see them not as shapes in the sky, but as a vast, magnificent landscape. They warn us of weather to come, a silent language understood by all life forms.
Even beyond our planet, clouds may hold mysteries; scientists speculate that the clouds on the surface of Venus may contain life. Can you imagine a living cloud? And just next door to our little blue marble. The skies, it turns out, are an endless source of wonder.
Now it’s time to make yourself feel wonder-filled by filling your time with several minutes of creative contemplation, with the help of these handy nudges:
Shape-Shifter (Narrative & Observation): The most classic cloud activity gets a twist. As you watch a cloud change shape, create a short, two-line story for each form it takes. "The dragon yawned and became a mountain." "The giant waved and became a field of sheep." This exercise matches your imagination’s gyrations to the cloud's constant reconfigurations.
Cloud Sound (Auditory & Imaginative): What is the sound of a cloud? Not the thunder and rain, but the motion itself. Does it have a slow, gentle hum? A deep, bass-filled rumble as it gathers? An opening-the-candy-in-the-theater rustle as it passes in front of the sun? Imagine the soundscape of different cloud types (wispy cirrus vs. bold cumulus) and describe them in a few sentences.
Shady Side (Visual & Sensory): Go outside when the sky is partly cloudy. For a few minutes, simply pay attention to how the clouds manipulate light. Observe how they create shadows on the ground and how the temperature changes when they block the sun.
Resident Alien (Conceptual & Science Fiction): Imagine you are on a different planet. What would the clouds be made of there? How would they look, feel, or act? Would they glow with bioluminescence? Would they rain fire or gemstones? Write a short, descriptive passage about the atmosphere on your imagined alien world.
Cloud Cover (Design & Reimagining): We see clouds as insubstantial, but what if they were a solid object you could interact with? Design a cloud you could travel on or use as a food source. What would it be made of? What would it feel like to hold a handful? Sketch or write about your new, functional cloud.
The next time you find a moment to pause, don't just look up—truly see. Clouds are a powerful reminder that our creative ideas, much like those beautiful formations of vapor, are in a constant state of flux. They are never truly gone; they simply change forms, from one state to another. They show us that there is beauty in change, and that the moments we take to simply observe and be present are often the most powerful catalysts for new ideas. So, let your imagination take flight, because the sky is not your limit—it's your canvas.
