Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 39

“Happy” is a Rocky Road

There is a prevailing idea that we should be happy all the time. That we have a right to it. That if we aren’t happy, something is wrong. We aren’t living right. In fact, the universe may possibly be against us.

Collage on mixed-media paper: Monsoon Papers, handmade vegetable paper, glue.

The American Constitution guarantees us the pursuit of happiness, but not happiness itself. There are going to be bad days. Very bad days. Unfair days. Two days after the dishwasher and washing machine both revolted, the pool pump had it’s Spring check-up.  The service-provider showed up, fiddled with the pump timing and was about to leave when I mentioned that my preference is for the pump to run at night, when I pay less for electricity.

He was pretty condescending, both about my desire to save money and my inability to know how to change the complicated timing mechanism. Wanting to keep peace more than wanting to be right, I paid him and watched him leave. Two hours later, while I was reading the instructions on how to change the timing, the pump stopped. I could not start it again. That was three days ago. The pool is now green–and green pools are not usable. No one would come out over the weekend, and it will be three to five days after someone does show up before the pool is clean enough to use.

Frustrated and angry, I began to brood over how unfair this all is. It is not what I had imagined the first 100-degree weekend would be. And while I was cranky, I muttered, “Why does this always have to happen to me?” Ahhh, how soon I forget.

Yes, this has been a run of expensive bad luck. But it’s not a sign of impending doom. In fact, quite a few things have gone well in the same time.

The tree trimmer never showed up, but now the huge Palo Verdes will shade the kitchen and family room, making it easier for the air conditioning to cool the rooms.

The point is, I realized that the world is neither fair nor unfair. It just is. And my time is better spent looking at what is working well, what is fueling my pursuit of happiness.

Being grumpy and cranky engenders more proof of how unfair life is.  The more time I spend being unhappy, the less time I have to be satisfied. If I spend some time looking for things to be happy about, I’ll find and enjoy them and make it a habit to enjoy what is working out. And all things in balance, I’d rather enjoy the things that worked this weekend.

—Quinn McDonald knows that “this too shall pass” refers to both bad and good events. Everything passes. How she takes it is up to her.

 

Filed under: In My Life Tagged: choosing happy, finding happiness, the pursuit of happiness

Changing Like a Butterfly

The caterpillar is programmed by destiny to spin a cocoon and emerge a butterfly. No one knows if the caterpillar is aware of what happens during the process. No one knows if the butterfly remembers being a caterpillar.

“Learning to Fly” © Quinn McDonald Collage: Monsoon Papers, handmade paper, sun-bleached paper, ink on mixed media paper.

People are different. We don’t spin a cocoon, change and emerge, fully different. Ours is a harder way–small steps every day. We change because we keep choosing two, day by day, decision by decision. Despite the advice and change-back messages from reluctant friends.

It is hard, making the choice to change. It means we deliberately give up one thing to choose another, often unknown.  It means we risk losing friends who don’t want to get to know us all over again in our new forms.  Some friends will turn around or branch off.  We can’t control their decision not to change.  The line between controlling our own lives and not controlling others’ lives is often blurry.

For some of us, the change is emotional. We choose to forgive bad parenting, and accept what we did get, and thrive despite of it. We choose to leave a job that pays well but doesn’t meet our values.

Our transformations are as amazing as a caterpillar’s. For all of us who have survived, who have chosen to heal ourselves, to push into growth,  to keep going no matter how hard, we have chosen a life of growth and transformation.

We know change is possible and sustainable. Sometimes it’s a secret. Sometimes we reinvent ourselves several times. We can have more than one career, one set of friends, or one job in a lifetime. It’s the same you, with all your emotional baggage, but you have chosen different destination. The one that leads to satisfaction. Maybe happiness.

–Quinn McDonald knows that the longer it takes a butterfly to get out of the chrysalis, the stronger the butterfly becomes and the longer it will live.

 

Filed under: Art in Progress, Coaching Tagged: butterflies and change, change, growth

Creative Hop: May 3, 2014

Federico Uribe creates color-pencil art. Sure, he might use the color pencils to put down color, but mostly, he uses the whole pencil as part of the artwork. Uribe, a Miami-based artist, uses found objects in his sculptures and his artwork, integrating them so carefully, they look as if they belonged exactly where he put them. Because they do.

Uribe says that using found objects is like interpreting the shape of clouds. He says that each object is like a word, providing context as well as content.

In the top artwork, you’ll see the background is a long line of yellow #2 pencils.

*    *     *     *   *   *

Andy Ellison is an MRI technician. He takes scans of people’s brains to earn a living. One day, in order to check the settings on the machine, he scanned an orange. He was amazed at the detail, the shape, and the movement.  It’s the movement that mesmerized me. Below is an artichoke, and it doesn’t move. Click on the link below to see the magical moving scans.

MRI of artichoke by Andy Ellison.

In Ellison’s blog, Inside Insides, he has a series of animations that seem to grow, shrink, multiply. Art and nature makes a great combination.

*   *   *   *

Ron Isaacs delicate vintage clothing is certainly art. It gets more amazing when you realize it’s not fabric, it’s wood. Finnish birch plywood, to be exact.

Isaacs sees his work as a combination of painting and sculpture. Of his subjects, he says, “My three primary recurring subjects are vintage clothing (for the way it continues the life of the past into the present, for its rich structures and colors and shapes, and for its anthropomorphic presence as a stand-in for the figure); plant materials in the form of sticks, leaves, and flowers (for too many reasons to list); and found objects. “

Have a creative weekend!

—Quinn McDonald is constantly amazed at the creativity of people who make art.

 

Filed under: Art in Progress, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: creativity coach, mixed media, MRI art, wood art

The To-Don’t List

Today was one of those days that you would cheerfully sell for a dime if only someone would take it. My dishwasher didn’t wash, but it did dry hard with a vengeance (isn’t that a movie?) and melted most of the items on the top rack.

While I was dealing with soft, hot plastic and rubber, I heard water splashing on tiles–but not in a good way. My washer had become incontinent, and was peeing on the laundry room floor. The laundry room is next to the family room–you know, the absorbent carpeted one.

No repair person available today, so I had to schlep the laundry to a laundromat where a woman with sad eyes asked if I were a Christian. (Uh-oh, loaded question.) She then told me the plot of several Christian movies, in rather confused detail, mixing plot lines and characters.

I’m out of  blog ideas for the day, and need some re-grouping time before I become optimistic and cheerful again. So today, a re-run of The To-Don’t List.

*    *   *

We all have to-do lists. Just for today, I’m creating a To-Don’t list. Things I can let go of, not care about, not do. Ahhh, it feels better already.

To-Don’t

—Spend all day dusting instead of enjoying last of the cool, sunshiny weather.

—Scrub the pool walls and get it ready for a summer of swimming.

—Answer that angry email with an angrier email. That’ll show ‘em. Make ‘em feel sorry, too.

—Tell my best friend what she should have done in that confrontation with her boss; advise (unasked) my spouse how to look better for that first meeting at work; fix my client’s need for attention.

—Find other people’s mistakes and point them out, along with my expertise in these matters. Maybe snag a few clients by showing off what I know. Really put myself out there.

—Start six new projects, but with no idea why or what they are supposed to be.

That’s my to-don’t list for today–things I want to walk away from and not get involved with. What’s on your To-Don’t list?

—Quinn McDonald is the owner of Old Testament appliances that seek revenge for unacknowledged grudges. The warranty of both the dishwasher and clothes washer expired 22 days ago.

Filed under: In My Life, Life as Metaphor Tagged: demonic appliances, laundromat, to-don't list

Confusing Words

We write fast and think more slowly. The words leap ahead of us, and we type what we “hear,” which often misses the bull’s-eye of accuracy.

Here are the ones I’ve noticed lately:

Trooper/trouper

A trooper is a military person or a police officer. We can have a troop of troopers–smaller than a squadron, and often used interchangeably with platoon.

A troupe is a group of performers. “The show must go on” is the rallying cry for performers who are sick or hurt–no matter, they are going to be brave and do what it takes to support the entire cast of the show.

Someone who braves through a lot of pain, effort, emotional upheaval or just plain work to get the project done is a trouper, not a trooper.

*     *     *

Peak/peek/pique

A visual will help here.

Peak is the top of a mountain or the best part of an experience.

Peek is to look or take a quick glance.

Pique (still pronounced ‘peek’ and not ‘pee-kay’) means to stimulate curiosity or interest or to annoy: She was piqued that he did not notice her new dress.

*     *     *    *

Uninterested/Disinterested

You know what uninterested means. Disinterested means fair or impartial. You want the jury to be disinterested in your case.

*     *     *    *   *

Flout/flaunt

Flout is to disregard a rule.  Flaunt is to display ostentatiously. “He flouted the rule of how much to spend on the engagement ring so his fiancee could flaunt her ring to all her friends.”

*     *     *    *

Alot/allot and their cousins alright and all right

Alot is not a word; it is mistakenly used for a lot.

Allot is to divide or parcel out.

Alright is not a word, even though many people use it. All right is still the correct way to spell it.

* * * * *

Often when I discuss easily confused words, people tell me “but it’s in the dictionary.” True. Many non-standard, incorrect, and scatological words are in the dictionary, which does not mean they are “right” or should be used. The dictionary is not a judge, but a source of explanations and definitions. In the same way, Google is not an encyclopedia, but a popularity reporter. The first listing (after the ads) is not the most correct, it is the one most often clicked on.

—Quinn McDonald loves the evolving English language. She teaches business writing, persuasive writing, technical writing, and grammar. She loves that our language expands to accept new words and then regularly abandons them. (Remember floppy disk?)

 

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts, Quinn's Classes Tagged: grammar, homonyms, word usage

Palo Verde Totem

The Palo Verde is Arizona’s state tree. That’s not why I love it, but it is a native desert tree, hardy and useful in many ways. Palo Verde means “green stick” in Spanish, and the tree is named that because the trunk and branches are green. Not covered in moss, but green.

Close-up of Blue Palo Verde tree turnk

The tree was an early adapter to the desert climate. It developed small leaves on thin leaf-holding stems. In the desert, there are no broad-leaf trees. Leaves lose too much water. Tiny leaves lose less water. But the Foothills Palo Verde has such tiny leaves that they can’t successfully photosynthesize enough to keep the tree alive. In an evolutionary leap, the tree developed the ability to photosynthesize through its bark, which is largely smooth and green.

There are three species of the tree–the Blue Palo Verde, Foothills Palo Verde and one (maybe two) hybrids of the two. The Palo Brea has a brighter green bark and the Hybrid is still trying to figure out who its parents are. All of them bloom profusely in the spring and summer, from pale to bright yellow blossoms.

A Foothills Palo Verde, whose brilliant yellow blossoms drift like snow this time of year.

The Palo Verde is a useful tree. The Foothills Palo Verde often serves as a nurse tree for the young saguaro cactus. Birds sit in the tree, drop the seeds of the saguaro with their poop, and the Palo Verde provides shades that protects the young cactus from the harsh desert climate. The seed pod of the Foothills Palo Verde is edible–raw, it tastes a bit like snow peas. Dried and ground, it provides a flour that helps the body slow the digestion of glucose.

(The seed pod of the Blue Palo Verde is bitter, although the flour is edible, when parched, ground and toasted.)

I’m fascinated by seed pods, particularly desert ones. They provide ways to protect the seed–they are tough, or open easily when rain hits them, or open easily if they are delicious to birds. In every case, the seed pod makes the propagation of trees more likely.

Seed pods hold the entire history of the tree–the DNA tells the story of the entire species. When I hold a seed pod in my hand, I feel connected to the desert, the tree and the power the tree holds by providing shade, food, protection and growth of the people and animals who live in the desert.

Because I travel, I wanted to have a seed pod from the desert to take with me. It helps me believe that I will return to the desert, and wearing a totem from the desert helps me remember that I have the responsibility to protect the delicate balance that exists here, both metaphorically and ecologically. But, I didn’t want to wear a real one–they open easily and I didn’t want a Sage Thrasher following me around the airport.

As I have done before, I turned to Matt Muralt, a custom jeweler in the Valley. He listens and then creates beautiful pieces. I wanted a sterling silver Palo Verde seed pod to wear. This is the one he created. It not only looks just like the seed pod, down to the groove on the side, it has a wonderful feel in the hand, just right for take off and landing–not my favorite part of the flight.

Matt has made me several totems and all of them are realistic and imaginative. And on my next trip out of state, I’ll have a totem to take with me.

—Quinn McDonald is a naturalist and wearer of totem jewelry.

Filed under: In My Life, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: protection, reminder totem, totem jewelry

Fear’s Long Stride

Some years ago, I worked for a small company that did good work. It hit a rough patch, and the president decided that we all had to help the company save money. We had to be frugal with office supplies, print on both sides of a page, keep the lights off in our office when the sun was on that side of the building.

I spent a lot of time scouring the hallways looking for dropped paperclips. Probably enough time to cut into the time I could have been working productively. I saved the company about $0.75  on paper clips that quarter, in several hours of looking for old ones.

The cutbacks became serious. We lost some benefits. And eventually, the company stopped paying its contractors on time. The time went from 30 days to 45, to 60. I spoke to the president.

“We have to pay the people who contribute to customer satisfaction, to bringing new clients into the company.” The president looked at me as if I were a simple child.

“We have to save money to make the company last long enough to get out of the problem.”

“We can’t save our way out of a growth problem,” I suggested. “Pay the people who are keeping us competitive, they are keeping us alive.” It was useless. The president believed that not spending would save us. It did not. You can imagine the rest of the story. It was an inevitable downward spiral.

Image from http://www.mariagranberg.se/facing-fears/

Finding your purpose in life and finding satisfaction follows the same plot line.  We listen to our fears, giving more value to our biggest fears, based not on outcome, but on how scared we are.

We avoid the work that would bring us success, we run from the decisions that demand us to face down fears. We think of it in terms of “being safe,” or “avoiding risk.” That’s the same mistake the company president made. The company couldn’t save its way out of a growth problem, we can’t get satisfaction, joy and energy in our lives by avoiding fear.

We reach satisfaction in our life and we realize the purpose of our life by facing

Image from http://www.mariagranberg.se/facing-fears/

fear, and making choices that free us from fear,  not those that avoid fear. When we act with courage, face our fears, refuse to quit just because it’s hard, that’s when we can see the purpose in life.

Running away from fear is not the path to your destiny. Staying on the path to your destiny with determination and courage will bring you light and clarity.

—Quinn McDonald is plenty scared creating her next course, but she is beginning to think it may be worthwhile. And that, right now, is enough to keep her writing.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: facing fear, overcoming fear

Your Creative Work and Your Story

You are a story-teller. Even if you are not a writer, your life tells a story. It is your story. You get to tell it. If you start adding pieces of other people’s story, your plot line will suffer. If you start telling it to please others, and change your story for their approval, your story drifts and disconnects from you.

Today, while doing a demo of Monsoon Papers, someone asked me if the pieces of paper could be framed as is.

“Sure,” I said, “if that’s what you want. I see the pieces as colors and textures to use in collage or art journals.” The woman asked if I had any pieces of my artwork made with Monsoon Papers with me. I did. I showed her a piece (not the one shown here). She looked and asked what it meant. I invited her to explore what the image meant to her. She frowned slightly and said, “A good piece of art speaks for itself. And this one needs you to tell me what it means. So there is something incomplete about it.”

What a surprising statement. How can art speak for itself? A realistic drawing might be of something recognizable, but even that leaves a lot open for interpretation.

Good art and good stories do not always speak for themselves. They leave the door open for content (which the artist supplies) and context (which the viewer supplies). Together, the same image can mean something entirely different to several viewers.

I found a great poem by Billy Collins that explains this perfectly:

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hod it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all thy want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

–Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room

-–Quinn McDonald realizes how much she has to learn every time she asks someone else to speak and she listens to them.

Filed under: Art in Progress, Coaching, Inner Critic, Life as Metaphor, Opinion, Poetry Tagged: art as meaning-making, Billy Collins, finding meaning in a poem

Creative Stroll: April 26, 2014

Note: Congratulations to Lisa Brown, who is the winner of The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery from my blog post. Send me  (email is on my Work With /Contact Quinn page on this blog) your mailing address and the book will be on its way to you. Enjoy the book!

*   *   *   *

Rachel Sussman is a photographer who loves science as it shows up in nature. She photographed the oldest living things on earth (and wrote a book about it), not only so we can see them, but also so we can help keep them alive for a few more years. The book contains 124 photos and 30 essays.

(Above) Llareta, a plant related to parsley. It is made up of thousands of small blossoms packed together.

The ancient organisms she photographs live on all seven continents and range from Greenlandic lichens that grow only one centimeter a century, to desert shrubs in Africa and South America, a predatory fungus in Oregon, Caribbean brain coral, to an 80,000-year-old colony of aspen in Utah.

Kerry Miller is a UK artist who saves discarded books. She carves them and paints them. But these are altered books like you haven’t seen in a long time. In her artist statement, she writes:

I use only old books as they lend themselves to this treatment in a way that modern ones do not and particularly enjoy the fact that I can even make use of books in a condition which most people would dismiss as unusable.

And finally, a photo of mother earth on Earth Day taken by NASA NOAA’s GOES-East satellite. Take care of your mother, she’s all we have right now.

 

–Quinn McDonald is finished with the studio upgrade, part 1. Part 2 will start once the futon and paper rack are sold. And she figures out a few things about the third dimension.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: art photography, earth day, nature

Re-visiting Creality

TJ’s avatar. That, and her beloved pretzels.

Note from QuinnCreative:  In 2011, TJ Goerlitz, contributor to the Inner Hero book, guest-hosted a post on creality. I’m a big fan of TJ’s work (and blog, Studio Mailbox). She has a sharp wit and a  wonderful talent in describing the fun and frustrations of being an artist.  Her experience of being an American mother in Germany made coffee come out my nose more than once.  TJ and I have discussed creative topics, and she first used the term “creality” to describe. . .well, here, I’ll let her tell it. Again. Just as she did in 2011.

*

Before I begin, please let me say that although creality is something I “made up” I’m convinced that it’s very real.   The hardest part of inventing stuff (besides the stereotypical bad hair) is deciding how to define the invention.  Is it a concept?  An affliction?  A tangible thing?

In my initial post on creality I tried to define it although I’m the first to admit it’s a bit rough.  And it focuses only on how I experience creality which tends to be in the negative sense.

The Germans use the term zwischenraum to literally mean “between space.”   In traditional printing, the little flat spacer that was used between the words in a line of type is also called a “zwischenraum.”

Creality is much like the literal German printer’s zwischenraum except it’s invisible.  Creality is the space that’s sitting between the idea you have in your head and the outcome of whatever you just made while attempting to manifest your idea.

Creality can be experienced in a negative or positive sense.  There are times when your created result exceeds your initial expectations and you might respond to it with terms such as; happy accident, the unfolding process, or better than imagined!

If you’re hardwired like myself however, you might be experiencing creality in a primarily negative sense.  We’re the ones responding to our creations with terms like; dissimilarity or variance.  Which also sometimes masquerades as “I’m so disappointed with this shit.” And in the event that the creality spacer for a particular project just happens to be huge, some might call it a mutation or in other circles an “epic frigging failure.”

For years, I thought two things could be the culprit for my episodes of my negative creality:  either my ideas were too idealistic or my skills were too remedial to achieve my desired result.  Both reasons put the blame on my own shoulders.

Yet over the years I started recognizing the same problem in every creative person I met! And I’m talking about all the creative fields:  actors, writers, cooks, painters.  The only difference being that we express it differently depending on our personalities and our perceptions.

All this might sound super nuts-o.  But I feel it would be helpful to other creatives to simply know about this phenomenon.  I’m willing to bet that very few things have ever been brought to completion exactly as imagined or planned.  And the power of knowing this ahead of time might just really help us not be so attached to the original idea in the first place.

Imagine if from the very beginning we could say to ourselves, “hey look.  I know exactly how I want 70 percent of this to turn out.  So let’s get that right and I’ll cut you some slack on the other 30.”  Wouldn’t that be the better way to start out instead of rigidly attempting to achieve something that isn’t going to hit 100 percent anyway?

*Insert fine print.*  Obviously the dialog above is probably not the best plan if you’re an architect or a heart surgeon.  Clearly we don’t want walls falling over or blood spurting out of our stitches when we sneeze.  What I’m talking about is journaling.  Quilting.  Self portraits.  Photography.  Wedding cakes.  Writing.  The kind of stuff where the consequences of creative liberties aren’t typically death.

Being aware of creality spacers can give you a whole new perspective.  For instance, have you ever taken on commission work where the client didn’t like the outcome despite the fact that you were sure that you created something to specification?  Although it’s possible that your interpretation of their request was way off or that your work in general is total crap, there’s also the possibility that you got yourself all messed up in their creality!  The point is, knowing about creality can help you stop blaming yourself for undesired outcomes.  And c’mon; who doesn’t appreciate something besides ourselves that can take the blame?

Here’s some more thoughts for you:

Negative creality is directly proportional to the degree in which you are attached to your original idea.
Creality can be especially painful for high achievers, and those who “set the bar high.”And sadly this has nothing to do with actual creative skill.  This has to do with a mentality that if you do not reach “the goal” then you have failed.
Creality doesn’t have to be painful or negative.  It can be a positive experience for those who can detach from their original ideas.
Creality spacers shrink in size and emotional significance at the same speed as which we forget the original concepts.
Thinking of your original idea as a catalyst instead of a rigid plan will help turn a potential negative creality experience into a positive one.

The only way I’ve been successful in handling my negative creality is to separate myself from the work.  And I specifically mean hiding whatever I just made in a spot where I know I won’t re-discover it for a few weeks.  I have never resurrected something and still been disappointed.  In fact, I’m normally really confused why I was so pissed off at it when I made it.

Distance is creality’s enemy!!

You can follow TJ on Facebook.

You can tour TJ’s studio in her blogpost. Hey, she cleaned up just for the post.

–Quinn McDonald is a recovering perfectionist who has suffered from Creality and been delighted by its surprises. She re-read this and realized some people may not have seen it. A wonderful re-run and thanks, again, TJ.

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art and life, Creality, TJ Goerlitz