WBI: Lacuna Group workshop, p.3

I am imagining what the participants in a Lacuna Group workshop for the design of William Blake’s Inn would experience working on “Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor” (hereinafter simply “Tailor”). Go here to learn more and to sign up to be kept informed of when stuff is happening.

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With everyone in the room throwing out ideas about how we’re going to visualize the construction and subsequent destruction of the Tailor’s house, how will we know which one is the RIGHT IDEA?

It’s a quandary, to be sure. Here’s a metaphor that might help: In nature, plants have developed thousands and thousands of different ways to reseed themselves and keep their DNA going.

Which one is the RIGHT one? You are of course thinking, what a dumb question — there is no RIGHT one, they’re all RIGHT in their own way. And how did they get that way? Evolutionary-speaking-wise, it was through trial and error, literally. Changes in the DNA, accidents, mistakes even, happen to every organism on the planet on a constant basis, and sometimes the change is actually beneficial, giving the new version of the organism a leg up in the competition.

So we get whirly maple leaves and velcro-style burrs and dandelion parasails and all those other versions of fertilized ova that fill our world with delight.

Just so with our workshop: In our evolutionary process, as Every Brilliant Idea tumbles out of us in a torrent of creativity, some ideas will appeal more than others. Some will be overwhelmingly attractive but impractical (1,000 bumblebee drones, anyone?), while some will be dismissed as uninteresting, while still others will be perfectly cromulent but not a good fit for the overall vibe we’re going for.

Eventually we will have to pick one and go with it, perhaps leaving behind some really cool ideas. In the meantime, though, we will have experienced what it means to be a creative part of a creative bunch of people.

And that is what is getting me excited about William Blake’s Inn.