Creativity

Young Chang Bill Wolfe's pants have smatterings of stripes, flowers and spirals in every color of the rainbow. His shirt is a loud green. His hat has spokes shooting out like a jester's. The ensemble is a symbol of his spirituality -- a belief that artistic creativity is a divinely inspired product that is present in everyone, Wolfe said. His position is that the spirit is nondenominational and encompasses any religion. As the director and founder of Sunday Night Alive, a self-expression group that meets monthly at the Center for Spiritual Discovery (previously known as the Costa Mesa Church of Religious Science)

I'm an annual source of irritation to my wife and two daughters when they ask me what I want for Christmas, and I come up blank. I'm not trying to be difficult. I simply can't think of anything. My life is already full of unworn shirts and unread books and exotic gadgets I haven't yet figured out how to use. They don't understand that just contemplating these gifts in my closet or on my nightstand gives me pleasure. This concept is especially difficult for my wife, who puts on new clothes, assembles new gadgets and gulps new books immediately after receiving them.

Art, activism and magic will be combined at a lecture from noon to 1:30 p.m. April 10 at UCI. Aaron Gach, co-founder and director of operations of the Center for Tactical Magic, will discuss ?Beyond Field: A Guide Through Practice and Discipline,? as part of the school?s Studio Art Department?s guest lecture series. Admission is free for the event, but visitors must purchase parking. The lecture will be at the UCI Student Center, Room C, building 113. Gach was inspired by work with a private investigator, a magician and a ninja to develop his unique outlook.

Spring is the time of year when creative buds blossom at Orange Coast College, where its Repertory Theater Company flexes its artistic muscles with a festival of one-act plays, most of them spawned right here in Costa Mesa. This year, there were so many entries that OCC was forced to divide the program into two sessions, beginning Wednesday and running through Sunday. Show Order A, composed of seven productions, offers an extended taste of the Rep's energetic creativity. This lineup features comedy, drama, satire — and a particularly impressive musical version of the television show "Lost."

Last year, I commented on the lack of pranks and how what passes these days for pranks is really nothing more than common vandalism. Throwing equipment into a high school swimming pool, for example, is not a prank, it is willful destruction of public property. No statement is made with that action, other than one that tells school officials the vandals know how to climb a fence or cut a chain with bolt cutters. The lone local exception I made was a prank whose damage was less than minimal and whose annual appearance has become a tradition.

It is the common practice among elementary school teachers to discipline their students into writing within the lines and in accordance with the Palmer handwriting standards. This widely practiced tradition of concentrating on how, as opposed to what, is being written seems to impede, rather than nurture, a sense of creativity and individuality in each child. Granted, a D should be legible enough to distinguish it from a P, but the method through which that difference in expressed to a wide-eyed 5-year-old who defies the handwriting stereotype can have various effects.

Corona del Mar High will boast students' art Corona del Mar High School will host a Senior Project Gallery Night to display the creativity of more than 35 of its seniors. The gallery will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. June 10. It will take place in the main 200 building/library location, which will allow for students, parents and the community to see the various displays that represent the students' creativity, vision and dedication. The project will include black and white photography, independent films, ceramics, blown-glass, handcrafted guitars, musical performances, studio artwork, mural and quilt designs, resorted auto and jet skis, fashion designs and creative writing samples.

CINDY TRANE CHRISTESON "Good friends are good for your health." -- IRWIN SARASON "There is no physician like a true friend." -- ANONYMOUS "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature." -- RALPH WALDO EMERSON "A single flower can brighten the earth, a friend can brighten a lifetime." -- RENEE BLANCHARD I recently celebrated a birthday. It wasn't one that was significant in terms of numbers, but it was special because of the many people I was with or heard from over the course of several days.

Some fathers give their children advice and lectures on life, regardless of whether they ask for it. My father, a man of few words, managed to get the important themes across by simply being himself. Here are a few lessons that have stayed with me through the years: Take matters into your own hands After a dispute with the electrical company, my father dismissed them and rigged the house with tiny bubbles of light charged by car batteries. There's always a brighter view Dad used to bow down, offer me his shoulders and rise in silence as my perspective changed from rough, brown trunks to dancing green leaves.

Within the first three to five minutes of meeting someone new, that person will have formed a strong feeling about who you are, how much they will like, trust and have confidence in you, and whether they will want to form a relationship with you. And you will reach the same conclusions about them. This is the message of "Contact: The First Four Minutes: A Practical Approach to Meeting the Right Person" (Ballantine Books, 1994). The verbal and non-verbal messages we send can be important in both our personal and professional lives, no matter who we are. This is true in interviewing for a job, soliciting business, greeting a new potential customer, meeting people at social functions or in potential dating relationships.

To meet demand, The Camp is using several off-site parking lots during peak hours, according to a presentation given Monday to the Costa Mesa Planning Commission. The popular Bristol Street shopping center in the Sobeca District uses 10 off-site lots for customers and employees. The lots, some of which are portions of other business' parking lots, are on Bristol, Baker Street, Randolph Avenue, Century Place and a section of St. Clair Street east of the 73 Freeway. The lots hold as few as five and as many as 40 cars.

Amid an orange-yellow dusk on a balmy November night in 2011, two surfers paused off the 28th Street Jetty in Newport Beach. The night inspired "Shannon Sunset," a color Jennifer Smucker, 36, and Shannon Lindsey-Frugis, 32, would paint onto the 1979 Dodge TransVan they use as a mobile office and arts center for their nonprofit Loveart&, which focuses on art, environmental advocacy and outdoor recreation. "People at the auto paint store asked, 'Are you sure? That color is horrendous!

Some campers learned a few new dance moves this week at a revamped summer camp for special-needs children in Costa Mesa. Halfway through the Camp of Creative Minds, which is eight weeks and serves children ages 5 to 18 who have autism or other related disorders, the participants learned the Macarena and Cupid Shuffle as part of Arts and Crafts/Music and Movement Week. Now in its third year, the summer spinoff from Creative Solutions for Hope, which provides behavior services for children, has switched from weekly field trips to focusing on skills.

He loved lists, so let's make one in his honor. The late John Leonard was brilliant, witty, earnest, brave, erudite, stubborn, poetic and totally smitten by literature. I never met him, but I can swear to the foregoing because I read his work for many years and — as I now know — his work reflected his soul. I know that because "Reading for My Life: Writings, 1958-2008" (Viking), a forthcoming collection of Leonard's superb essays and book reviews, includes a portrait of the writer.

Paintings can do more than decorate a home. They can also save your brain. Studies show that exposure to a diverse range of arts and other educational stimuli over long periods of time can decrease memory loss by up to 50%, said Dr. William Shankle, program director of Memory & Cognitive Disorders at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute. "The use of artistic or creative activity activates many brain areas," he said. "By activating those brain areas, it induces changes in brain activity that protect the brain from disease and aging.

The Los Angeles area's arts and entertainment industries lost thousands of jobs from 2007 to 2010, according to a study of the "creative economy. " The findings for 2010 commissioned by Otis College of Art and Design and compiled from state and federal government figures by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. showed a loss of 21,500 jobs and an 11% decline in employment in the three years. Known as the Otis Report on the Creative Economy of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, the study encompasses both traditional arts and entertainment categories and five additional fields that the researchers consider to be part of the region's broader creative economy.

Newport Harbor senior Crystal Morales' life changed dramatically Tuesday as she was walking home from school. Just last week, Morales wrapped up an intense project as an editor and actor in a short student film. On Tuesday, the shy and creative teen was critically injured in a suspected DUI crash. The 17-year-old is scheduled to graduate this spring and possibly enroll in Orange Coast College culinary classes or in film courses, said her mother, Gloria Morales. Speaking from Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where Crystal is in a medically induced coma, Gloria's voice breaks up as she talks about her daughter.

NEWPORT BEACH — It was "Dancing with the Stars," but instead of football players and reality-TV personalities, teachers took to the stage. Newport Harbor High School's theater was packed Tuesday night for the first-ever "Dancing with the Teachers" to benefit the school's dance program. It was the first of two performances. "I'm so proud of these guys for getting on this stage and doing what they are doing," said Principal Michael Vossen, who also served as a judge. Teachers showed their stuff in eight choreographed routines and performed with members of the dance team to try and win the audience's vote for best dancer.

COSTA MESA — In the world of the future, robots play football. That day will be one field goal closer Saturday. The Orange Coast College Engineering Club, along with robotic mascot Pete the Pirate, will host the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Invention Challenge in which 30 high school and junior high school teams from Southern California will enter their robotic creations at 9 a.m. in front of the college's library. The robots must be less than 2 meters tall and able to kick a regulation football over a 2-meter obstacle and into a trash can, according to the rules posted on JPL's website . "[The students]

Los Angeles may boast the West Hollywood Halloween Costume Carnaval on Santa Monica Boulevard, but in Orange County the Halloween party of choice may just be the annual Friends of Dorothy Guild Haunted Halloween gala at the Village Crean in Santa Ana Heights. Some 250 guests attired in creative costumes converged upon the Crean estate for a recent Saturday night dinner and auction benefiting AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County. Event organizer and Friends of Dorothy Guild founder Barbara Venezia gushed with excitement, raising a record $70,000 at the Halloween party and setting a high bar for the organization.