Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 57

It’s Not About You (Always)

This blog is about life. Not always my life, but about the things most creatives experience–and just like the tag line (up there somewhere) it’s about the leaps, stumbles, trips and tips I discover along the way.

And that’s what I write about. Things I pick up in conversations, images I see during the day, ideas I pick up from reading. And I absolutely never take something I hear in a coaching conversation and write about it. What can happen, though, is that I hear a topic that begins to become common to a number of clients. Then I notice articles about the topic–OK I read a lot of magazines and books and it could just be a coincidence. But I don’t think so.

Our lives are a reflection of where we are and what we see.read about it

Once it has jumped out of one conversation and become a topic of popular culture, or common interest, I will write about it.

Inevitably, when I wrote about a topic that affects creatives, I begin to get emails that tell me (flatteringly) that I am a mind-reader or (accusingly), I’m using one person’s ideas, life, or thoughts as grist for my blog. It makes me smile when a client sees something difficult or problematic in a blog and thinks I’m writing about them. Personally. In a critical way.

Originally, I wondered how they could think that way about me. And then I smile, and realize that it’s not about me, it’s about them. They see themselves in an unflattering way, and despite the fact that I never use names, regions, or any traceable information (unless the client has given me specific permission) they feel exposed. It’s hard to recognize your faults when they are in sharp focus in front of you. But it’s also not about you specifically. It’s about a lot of people who feel this way, an inner critic convention. And just like fad diets, fad styles, fad art projects, there are fad problems. And it’s good to see how they show up in your life so you can decide if it’s helpful. And make some decisions about what you want to collect and what you want to discard.

But as much as this blog is about the creative life, it’s not about a particular person. It’s just written by a particular person. (And yes, I typed “peculiar” first).  And it covers a wide scope of creativity. Always.

–-Quinn McDonald has a big brush that colors her world.

Filed under: Creativity, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: blogging creatively, creativity coaching

Saturday Creative Stroll

Philip Barlow is a South African painter. So often, when we think, “painting,” we think “photo realism,” and so does Barlow. Perhaps too closely. He paints realistic images that are slightly out of focus, like a photography might be.

Blurred painting by Philip Barlow.

The blur is familiar in photographs, but it seems interesting and strange in a painting. Barlow does it to leave much of the image understanding to the viewer.

“The figures in the landscape serve as carriers and reflectors of the light that falls upon them. Bathed in the luminosity, it is my hope that they would become more beautiful. To me, light is the ultimate subject because it embodies the pinnacle of all reality,” says Barlow.

Joe Sinness illustrates in colored pencil. Colored pencil is not an easy medium. The colors are blended on the paper, and layer upon layer of delicate color creates depth and vibrancy. It’s a time-consuming art form. But the results, when done well, are lovely.

Color pencil drawing by Joe Sinness.

And Sinness does lovely very well. His illustrations are rich and complex, whether the image is a flower or as complex as crumpled piece of mylar.

Color pencil illustration by Joe Sinness

Shi Shaoping sculpts eggs. The ceramic ovals weigh about 22 pounds each. Shi makes them in large numbers, takes them to remote locations in China and leaves them there.

The work questions the essence of life. The 3,000 eggs in placed in lonely locations emphasizes the potential of life and the ability of life to exist in a location after abandonment.

 

In that way, life creates the location in which it exists. Shi also opens the discussion of the link between art and life, and the reaction to both depending on the surrounding area.

Have a creative weekend!

–Quinn McDonald has inky hands and is making samples for Patti Digh’s Design Your Life camp.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art round-up, ceramic eggs in China, colored pencil art, out of focus paintings

Flash Cards, Next Step

A generous soul gave me a box of flashcards some years ago. They showed up again when i was cleaning up the studio. There are about 200 of them. They are ivory card stock, 8.5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide. Sturdy with rounded corners. Each one has a word on one side, and a small number in the upper left-hand corner.The other side is blank.

What do I do with them?

I’m looking for creative, interesting ideas–not ones that anyone might think of–bookmarks, journal covers, journal pages.

Think of something you would love to do with them.  Or something you wold love to see them turn into.

I love combining words and art, so I should have thought of something really fast, but I didn’t. So I’m asking you. What should I make from these cards?

If you leave a comment, you have a chance to win the Collage Workbook, by Randall Plowman– a quirky, interesting source book for collage ideas.

So let’s hear those imaginative ideas!

-–Quinn McDonald has found some extra time hidden in the studio.

 

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Raw Art Journaling, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: creative ideas, Flashcards, journaling projects

Extremes

Sometimes you want to see the world in black and white,  yes or no, right or wrong. Shades of grey keep adding definition and shadow.

Sometimes vibrant red and yellow wakes you up and makes you pay attention to the details.

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“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” –Theodore Roethke.

Each has a place in your life. Light and shadow. Color and gray. Joy and sorrow. We are not guaranteed a trouble-free life. And we wouldn’t really want one.

--Quinn McDonald is back in the studio.

Filed under: Coaching, Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling Tagged: dualism

Design Your Life Camp with Patti Digh

Patti Digh and I lived in Washington, D.C. at the same time, but didn’t know her

Patti Digh, designer and creator of Design Your Life Camp.

then. I knew about her husband’s interest in books, old, interesting and science-based, but I didn’t know the guy was Patti Digh’s husband. It took Patti’s book (Life is a Verb) her book signing at Changing Hands in Tempe (AZ) and Facebook to connect us.

And connect we did. Patti is the inspiration behind the blog 37 Days. In 2003, her  stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. Thirty-seven days later, he died. Patti began to live her life asking a transformational question: “What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?

Legacy Lake at Lake Lanier Island Resort.

The answer right now is “creating and breathing life into the Design Your Life Camp,” a three-day sleep over camp for adults. No tents. It’s being held at Lake Lanier Island Resorts, outside of Atlanta, and no one is sleeping rough.

I asked Patti if she had ever been to sleep-over camp. “Yes! I still have the photo of me leaving for camp, sitting on my duffle bag, which was my father’s duffle bag in the Navy. We slept in tents on wooden platforms and rose with the sun.”  What made her want to run a camp for adults? “When we took our oldest daughter, Emma, to camp for the first time, I turned to John and said, ‘There should be camps for adults.’ The freedom! The spacious feeling of camp! And so, years later, I posted on Facebook one evening, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have a ‘summer camp’ for adults?’ and the response was overwhelming.”

On October 4 through 6, Patti’s summer camp for adults will become a reality. The camp is for adults who want to regain their courage, reignite their creativity and reconnect with their tribe–a community of like-minded people. It kicks off with a writing workshop and has three days of creativity, inspiration and even a talent show! When Patti asked me if I wanted to do a creativity workshop, there was no hesitation. Absolutely! And because the Inner Critic shows up at summer camp too, I’m presenting Mind Over Chatter on both Saturday and Sunday. (You can register for the sessions here.)

If you are an introvert and think that all this summer camping isn’t for you, well, Patti has a message for you: “First of all, don’t let yesterday take up too much of today. You’re at a different place in your life now–and whether you are an introvert like I am, or an extrovert, you’ll find connections at camp. This is the most supportive group of people you’ll ever find–come to camp as you are, not as you think others want you to be. You’ll be accepted, appreciated, and included.”

If you haven’t heard about the camp, find out. Register. I am participating, not just running a workshop. Because I need my tribe. Because I want community, and because, as Patti says, “That the energy of the space we will create will be created by all of us–it is a co-creation, a community making strong offers and participating whole-heartedly, and those strong offers will look different for all of us. I would ask them to think beyond ‘what will I get from this?’ to ‘what am I bringing to this?’”

I’m bringing my best workshop, the one my new book (The Inner Hero Creative Art Journal)  is built on. But I want to meet other people who are on a journey of creativity and transformation. Summer camp in October? Irresistable!–I hope to see you there!

–Quinn McDonald is excited to be offering a workshop at the Design Your Life Camp ’13. She’s even more excited to participate in the rest of the activities.

 

Filed under: Coaching, Inner Critic, Quinn's Classes Tagged: Design Your Life Camp, Patti Digh, spiritual retreat, transformational retreat

Postcard to Yourself

Art journaling has become rote: You paint several backgrounds first, then design and layer stencils, paint, collage, and words later.  Move on. There is charm in free-slapping paint and words. You can also be precise with color and words, like Teesha Moore, whom I admire greatly for meticulous design.

Postcard with butterfly made of maps and Monsoon Papers. Butterfly path says “Sometimes your inner hero grabs the map and flies off with it.” © Quinn McDonald 2013

Long a fan of writing-only journals,  I still prefer to work out thoughts and emotions one page at a time. Without the constriction of a completed background color that no longer matches my emotion. If I work on several pages at once, they are all free-standing, drying in peace, without waxed paper.

Free-standing pages give you emotional and creative freedom. You can gather and sort at leisure. If you use 5-inch by 7-inch watercolor paper (A5 or A6 work just as well) you can also use them as postcards.  (Use regular letter postage in the U.S.) The stamp and postage mark add charm and a certain amount of wear, making your thoughts look well-used.

I belong to an international postcard exchange (Postcrossing)  and send about 30 postcards a month. People post their requests, hoping you will send a theme or style of postcard. Some people request no handmade or art postcards, and I honor that request. One person requested postcards with butterflies, and I made one, only to notice she didn’t want handmade cards. I had addressed it already, so gesso to the rescue. But that meant not sending it to someone in the exchange. I decided to send it to . . .myself. I wouldn’t mind the gesso’d over spot.

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Back of postcard, with butterfly made from textbook and braille paper. It says, “Sometimes, you have to follow blind, trusting as you fly. It feels awkward, but you are still flying.” © Quinn McDonald 2013

Getting a postcard is completely different than turning a journal page and reading. Grabbing your mail and sorting it has a mindset of grumpy bill paying, tossing out, getting the chore over with.

Discovering a postcard with a personal message is the equivalent of slamming on the brakes before you pass the store you’ve been looking for. You see and feel the message in a completely different mindset–one of vulnerability and surprise. What better time to get a message you need?

—Quinn McDonald designs free-standing pages, postcards, and containers to hold them.  She is teaching these postcards in Tucson on September 22, 2013.

 

Filed under: Coaching, Creativity, Inner Critic, Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling, The Writing Life, Tutorials Tagged: creativity coaching, postcards from the other side of your mind, postcards to yourself

Protecting Your Boundaries: a How-To Lesson

Once your client has moved the boundaries, they become the “new normal.” If you don’t want them creeping over your fence, eating up your time, energy, and profit, you will have to protect your boundaries. (Read the first post on boundary protection)

Protecting your boundaries from being moved without your permission is a self-care necessity. It’s a survival tactic. This is where journaling comes in handy. At the end of every day, a short summary sentence in your journal will help you get to what was important in your day. You will most likely home in on that loss of time or energy, that thorn of anger. The second time, you will remember it happened just last week. This is the time to draw a box in your journal and label it “what I want from this client,” and fill in some statements, as strong as you need them to be to feel comfort.

If those points are about your dignity, your time, your profit margin, it is time to have a conversation with the client. Almost certainly, this is what you don’t want to do.

Add a box in the journal, this one connected to the last one:  “What I fear about this conversation.” (Example: I’ll lose the client.) Deep breath. Scope Creep ( a better term than “boundary issues” because business clients  don’t care about your boundaries, but they do about the scope they agreed to) is handled more comfortably when it is at 10 percent out of whack than it is at 50 percent.

Add another box (also connected): “How to Talk to The Client in Client Terms.” As soon as you notice that your boundaries are being moved, you need to bring it up. The instant you don’t, it becomes the “new normal,” and you lose the ability to adjust it without a struggle. This is your responsibility. But how you say it is important to keeping the relationship. You need to use words your client can comfortably hear.

The big issue is your noticing the boundary being moved. When you don’t react, you may think of yourself as a hero, giving your client a gift, a generous gesture. Your client sees as a negotiation step. That’s a communication gap that has to be adjusted. If you don’t, the client will repeat what worked before, until you get angry and explode. Which the client won’t understand. It was OK with you the last time.

So you talk about Scope Creep. Create your own solutions. If you don’t, the client will create solutions you may feel you have to accept.

Your solutions could suggest:

1. Delivering what you originally agreed to by the date you originally agreed to.

2. Delivering the new materials, by a time you choose.

3. Sticking to the schedule the client wants, but reducing what you have been asked to do.

4. Having a new price for choices 2 and 3.

5. Tell the client that work will stop until you both agree on the next step. This is not unreasonable, as the deliverables or deadlines have changed, and work can’t continue because it no longer has a direction you can follow.

Writing this out in your journal allows you to express all the emotions around it in advance. When you know where your emotional hot buttons are, you can avoid them.

You are the only one who can stop Boundary Creep. If you want to protect your emotional landscape, your time,  and your energy, be ready to Plan, Act and Live your values. Yep, that’s being a PAL to your business and yourself.

-–Quinn McDonald still spends many days replacing boundaries and painting them to look friendly.

Filed under: Creativity Tagged: boundary violations, project management, scope creep, talking to a client

Protecting Your Boundaries

Amazing, Imperceptible Boundary Creep and Explosion is a problem for most entrepreneurs, no matter what field they are in. For me, it’s a habit I developed as a freelance writer and instructional developer, and that crept into my coaching. I think this is a problem for a lot of women entrepreneurs. See if this rings true for you.

Here’s how it works:

1. Client and Entrepreneur begin working. They determine deliverables, stakeholders, deadlines, budget. Everyone agrees.

2.  Entrepreneur begins to work on the project with great enthusiasm, knowing that pleasing the  stakeholders is possible because we all agreed on the deliverables and deadlines and there is a reasonable profit in it.

3. Client calls. He had a meeting with a stakeholder and the stakeholder, after giving the project some thought, wants a minor change. Could you do that in the time given? Entrepreneur can, and it’s not a big deal, so you agree.

4. Few days later, the client says that there have been more ideas, and could you (the entrepreneur) discuss those for a minute? Sure. An hour later, you have asked a lot of questions, and feel  really clever that you found a solution that is a specialty and  don’t have to charge him more because you are so damn clever. You agree.

5. The solution doesn’t work out quite as planned, and you have to add 10 hours to the project, seriously biting into the profit margin. But you don’t want to go back and ask for more money for [fill in your own Inner Critic driven reason] This is called Scope Creep, and you are not addressing it.

6. Entrepreneur now feels cheated and angry, but says nothing. What started out as a good idea, a way to show your creative cleverness, is now a time, energy and money drain, unacknowledged by the client.  The client is pleased, that’s enough payment for now, you think.

8. The client calls for the next job and you tell him you will need to charge more, as we have had several episodes of Scope Creep and need to note it out front. The clients gets huffy and tells you that he doesn’t understand why you are nickel and diming him now, when you have always accommodated “minor” changes before.

Boundary Shift, Your Point-of-View and the Client’s

The boundary with the client shifts imperceptibly (to the client) and you accommodate him, because you want to please your client. The boundary keeps changing. What originally was a boundary that left you with a comfortable profit margin and room for three more clients shifted to a pressure-driven job that you began to resent because it robbed you of other clients and left you with no profit margin.

The conclusion: Scope creep happens gradually. It’s always small things that you can happily accommodate. Until one day, you can’t, and the client gets angry, because he wants his result, and you have given in before.

Because the client won all the small boundary movements, he doesn’t see the huge change in the overall scope and you, who did not stop the scope creep, are now stuck with the new boundaries as the new “normal,”–which includes less profit and less room for new clients.

This is the crucial step. If you don’t stop Boundary Creep, you will give up your priorities, your goals, your time, your energy, and your money.

Coming Friday: How to manage Boundary Creep through your journal.

—Quinn McDonald learns her lessons the hard way. But she learns them.

 

 

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: freelancing tips, making your work worthwhile, managing clients, solopreneur

The Brain-Eating Zombie of Shutting Up

Yes, I have complained about how much people reveal about themselves on Facebook. Yes, I have been shocked by how thin (or non-existent) is the filter between brain and mouth.

Now, to the exceptions. Sometimes, keeping quiet does not serve your creativity. Or your peace of mind. Yesterday, I posted about the amazing shrinking class–the registration was full, but only two people showed up. It was hard for me to admit it out loud. How humiliating it felt to admit that the class was not full. And for all the readers on this blog to see! And my competitors to chortle about! Surely, I should shut up about this. No, that is not a good idea. It helps nothing.

Not shutting up is exactly what Brené Brown means when she talks about being vulnerable. It wasn’t about me. I wrote that blog for three reasons:

1. I learned an important business lesson.

2. Other instructors, who had not learned the lesson yet, could learn it without being humiliated.

3. Other instructors could also save themselves a loss of income.

The simple solution to the problem is to get paid before class. Not to punish people, but to create an accurate count for materials, and to judge the pace of the class.

When I create the class (and later, the flyer)  I  plan for a certain number of people, and then plan the pace and scope of the class. I can make small adjustments, but if extra people show up, I might not have enough supplies, and I will have to shorten what I teach to plan for keeping everyone in the class on target and able to complete the project.

If too few people show up, the class might drag, and I’ll have to fill in projects to keep them busy enough. No one wants to pay for a class and then finish two hours early. The participants might feel that they deserve a refund if the time wasn’t filled.

This is a teaching fact–there is a lot of work a teacher does that participants never see. And that is the whole point of  my speaking out. It’s not about being humiliated–there was nothing to be humiliated about. People who don’t show up after saying they will aren’t humiliating me, they are embarrassing themselves.

Competitors who snicker when I didn’t fill a class are doing so because they have experienced it themselves and still feel the pain. And every instructor has felt that pain. How they deal with it is up to them, and doesn’t affect me.

There is no bitterness in asking people to pay ahead of time. It simply is a good teaching practice. And my feeling humiliated? It’s an Inner Critic move to diminish my attention to class success and crank up creative insecurity.

Tending to boundaries is an important practice. On Wednesday, there will be more about the importance of boundaries and establishing and tending them.

–-Quinn McDonald teaches much more than art projects.

Filed under: Inner Critic, Quinn's Classes, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: class rules, creativity coaching, leading workshops, Teaching

Showing Up

If you are involved in a wedding, you know how hard it is to get people to RSVP. I’m not sure why–are they holding out for a better date, a more exciting plan? For some reason, people who know how important it is to respond, don’t.

In the case of the class today, I had a full class signed up. Then two people dropped out. They told me, and I adjusted. Last night I packed and loaded papers, inks, gloves, brushes, glues, gesso–enough for all the people who signed up. It filled a Rubbermaid container big enough so I needed a hand-truck to roll it into the store.

And then, to my surprise and disappointment, only two people showed up. They were the nicest, smartest, and most delightful people any instructor could ask for, but the rest of the people didn’t show up, didn’t call, and didn’t notify the store.

To make matters worse, I had not asked them to pay ahead of time. And I always do that. This time, I had some trouble getting the PayPal button to stick on my website, so I just asked for checks. Each person said they would pay at the class.

That’s a red flag right there. I like trusting people and believing the best will happen. In this case, it didn’t. And I own the responsibility for making a basic business mistake–not getting paid up front.

A fast calculation shows me I earned about $7.00 an hour creating and presenting this class. That alone is incentive enough to remind me to insist on payment up front. Having paid, participants remember better, don’t look for other things to do, and, in a time when it’s not something people do easily, they commit to showing up.

Showing up is important. It’s a sign of character,  credibility, reliability, and responsibility. It’s who you want to be. It also keeps the balance of trust and easy-going behavior alive. People who don’t show up create instructors who tighten up their rules and hone an edge of protection onto their attitude.

We show up in the world with our character showing. Make yours something people talk about behind your back with admiration.

–Quinn McDonald learns something every time she runs a class.

 

 

Filed under: In My Life, Quinn's Classes Tagged: courtesy, honesty, showing up for class