Weird and Wonderful 'First Tuesday' Meeting 1st September 2015

Weird and Wonderful

- a workshop to encourage lateral thinking -

Introduction

I'd like to invite you to do some lateral thinking, to think outside the box. The title of the workshop perhaps should have been Weird or Wonderful because you may well have either or both reactions to the activities I’m going to invite you to do. The idea is to get your mind working in a way it might find unusual, to encourage, perhaps, a different kind of creativity. I hope you’ll find it interesting but don’t worry if it doesn’t work for you. Our creative Muses all work in different ways.

Exercise 1

PROVERBS FOR TODAY by Paul Eluard and Benjamin Péret

I came, I sat, I departed

A crab by any other name would forget the sea

One good mistress deserves another

When reason is away, smiles will play

Grasp the eye by the monocle

Spare the cradle and spoil the child

Finish these in whatever way you like:

A bird in the hand is worth....................................................................................................

Cleanliness is next to ..........................................................................................................

Don’t try to run before ..........................................................................................................

The proof of the pudding is ..................................................................................................

Money is the root of .............................................................................................................

Every picture tells ................................................................................................................

Truth is stranger than...........................................................................................................

There’s no smoke without ....................................................................................................

Exercise 2

Write for ten minutes about what you think is happening in this picture, or anything the picture brings to mind.

Exercise 3

Look at work by Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher - available online. Choose one picture that

appeals to you.

Something to think about :

What title for the picture springs immediately to mind?

What emotion is conveyed by the picture?

How does the picture make you feel?

Does the image remind you of anything else?

Is any kind of narrative suggested?

Write what comes into your mind.

Heather Shaw