The Spot Adder

Reference

"Spot Weld" was published in the May 1961 edition of the Hade-E-Gram MagiZette. The trick is the creation of Don Stewart.

In the original a spotted card was placed on a stand, underneath a "mysterious" question mark cover. Then a plain ribbon was displayed, and an experiment in 'spot transfer' is proposed. In the end, the ribbon becomes spotted, and the missing spots in the card are revealed.

The original idea really hit the spot for me, as something that was a visual curiosity. However, I quickly found that every piece of it was not quite what I wanted. It wasn't worth carrying an extra table or stand for a quick trick. I didn't much care for sticking something in my pocket for a magical change. It ended up being quite the session of creative problem solving.

Inward-looking creativity is working with what it IS.

It's looking at what you've got, as parts and pieces on your workshop table, and reconfiguring and recombining things to make it work better for you. It's about identifying problems, such as "how do I change a silk when I only have one hand?" and working it out. I find the fewer pieces you use to solve the problem, the more practical the solution.

Outward-looking creativity is thinking what it COULD BE

Ideas are the spark between two previously un-connected things. I'm really excited about how this quick trick can become the middle of a whole routine. You can start with the classic Spot Card (aka What's Next, aka Dynamo Dots) which just so happens to end where this trick begins. After the Spot Adder you're left with a polka-dotted silk which could be used to start off the next trick; the spots could be pulled off into balls, or a colour-change to "get rid of the black spots"... and they become white spots!

Make use of the pieces you have on the table, and make new connections.