Welcome back to all you color coordinators. Last week we cracked open those old paint cans and tried to stir creative expression into our day. Maybe you tapped out a rhythm you could shake to on a rusty lid or finally made peace with your poor interior design choices in 2023. If you found something meaningful in your homegrown color palette, that means you’re ready to stretch your creative muscles again.
This week’s creative nudge uses something that we try to make as noticeable as possible. In fact, some would say that this week’s object is often on display…and always broadcasting. This week our creative push comes from a ring.
It might be the ones you wear on your digits—gold or silver or prize from a vending machine. It could also be the one on many front porches—the digital eye, the corporate-branded “Ring,” watching comings and goings like a polite but nosey neighbor. A ring can mean commitment, status, memory, identity. It can record something personal or broadcast something public.
When I take walks and trigger a Ring just by walking on the sidewalk, I have to admit being a little annoyed by the robotic intrusion into the community space. Perhaps choosing this nudge is a way for me to see these moments in a more creative way.
Both kinds of rings do something similar: they signal. One says who you are (or who you’ve promised to be). The other says who’s there (and sometimes get off my lawn).
I’ve never been a jewelry person, but I do notice what others are wearing. Who wears them, where they wear them. A ring can be commitment, status, memory… or just something to fidget with while waiting in line.
And the doorbell kind? We don’t have to answer doors anymore, we can screen people like we do on our phones, with extreme prejudice! We review footage and rewind reality. The ring on your door is a robot butler who can record, reframe and sometimes turn everyday life into performance art.
Whether you’re wearing one or being watched by one, let’s spend a few minutes exploring what these time loops are trying to tell us with a few of these exercises:
1. Inner Circle: Take a close look at a ring on your hand. Draw it, photograph it, or describe it in writing with obsessive attention. Now expand the frame: what else is visible in its reflection? What world is contained inside that small circle? Is it distorted, truthful, flattering?
2. Ring Tone: Tap a ring against different surfaces—glass, wood, metal, stone. Listen to the pitch and resonance. Each surface answers differently. Build a small composition using only those sounds. A rhythm of contact. A language of small impacts. Record it or perform it live. What message does your “ring” send when it’s heard instead of seen?
3. Being Seen: If you have access to a doorbell camera (yours or a friend’s), review a clip—or imagine one if not. A delivery. A visitor. A pause before choosing to knock or ring the bell. Write a short scene from the perspective of the camera. What does it notice that humans miss? What patterns emerge? Is it protective, suspicious, bored? Turn this passive observer into an active storyteller. Bonus: imagine the camera narrating your own arrival home.
4. Sight Gag: Stand in front of a door as if you’re being recorded. Approach, hesitate, hide, leave, return. Exaggerate the awareness of being seen. How does your body change when you believe you’re being observed? Turn that into a short performance piece—a choreography of self-consciousness. This is your “front porch dance,” whether anyone is actually watching or not.
Rings remind us that meaning doesn’t always need words. Whether wrapped around your finger or mounted at your door, they do frame and inform our human interactions (and sometimes raccoons). This week, take a few minutes to step inside the circle. Spin it, study it, perform for it, or break out of it entirely.
This column was written with the help of ChatGPT, used here as a creative collaborator to bring some new ways of thinking into the world.
