I might as well display this journal entry on my page for anyone who stumbles on to it by accident, and they think they are suffering from some delusion going around called "artist's block".

"Wheeler's Cloud" is something I picked up from the book "The Mind of God" by Paul Davies where he describes how it's possible for a god to be both necessary and contingent at the same time!* Since creating art is in its own way related to being a god (of your own world/creation), I thought this might be important to know.

The story goes like this: The famous physicist John Archibald Wheeler told a story about how he was dragged into playing 20 Questions by his friends one day. He decided to amuse them and join in, starting with the obvious "Is it an animal?" and so on. After some questions later he finally concluded "is it a cloud?!" and his friend says "yes!!" and then everyone but poor Mr. Wheeler burst out laughing. Apparently all of his friends were playing a joke on him where there wasn't actually any defined object to be guessed, but they were just making up random answers as they go along but to also keep consistent with the previous answers and eventually shape something from nothing.

What I like about Wheeler's Cloud analogy is firstly how he came to arrive that it's a cloud, something that has no defined shape or form yet our eyes find shape and form as we see them. Secondly that the term "Wheeler's Cloud" is a Wheeler's Cloud! Thirdly that I like to think it relates to creativity in general, from nothing we can randomly plot rules as we go along then follow them (or break them, which is a rule in itself) to arrive to a created body of work!

This is of course just one method among many of creating work. Another method is to trace over other peoples drawings and sign your own name over it.


*I can expand on this if you want me to.