Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 64

Time Management? Not Any More

“Knowledge is power,” Francis Bacon said. So did Hobbes. (Not Calvin’s friend, the other one. Thomas.)  I’m not sure it is anymore. Knowledge is easily available–we can now check up on facts much faster than in the days we had to go to the library and look up a book or article. Of course, we also have to spend some time sifting through drek to find the knowledge. But still, it’s easy to access knowledge.

What is important, however, is attention span. That is in danger of disappearing.

The star-eating chicken Ink on paper. © Quinn McDonald

Attention span is power.

Which jumps me to time management. It’s not time we need to manage, it our attention. Choosing what needs attention, how much attention, listening to what needs to be done, paying close attention on completing  the steps needed to complete the task–that’s attention management. It’s easier to start six things, jump from one task to another, add household tasks while we are doing office chores, avoiding creative work because we pretend the laundry needs our time–time management vanishes when we begin to practice attention management.

Attention management allows you to separate “urgent” from “important.” Both need attention, but mot of the time, we suppress “important” for “urgent” because “urgent” has our reputation on the line, and “important” isn’t “urgent” yet.

Yep, I’m pretty sure that attention management is a skill that can solve problems and help us get work done. And allow for play. Which is the whole point.

–Quinn McDonald believes that play is real work.

Filed under: In My Life, Journal Pages Tagged: attention management, attention span, time management, urgen v. important

Saturday Creative Links

Transitory space photograph by Leah Oates.

Leah Oates is a Brooklyn (NY) photographer who thinks about transitory spaces, and how they appear and disappear, unnoticed. So, being a photographer she noticed and memorialized them. Here’s Leah Oates’s  artist statement explaing the exhibition:

The work I create first originates as a response to space that is in a continual state of change. In everyone there is a sense of flux and a familiarity with this type of space.

Transitory spaces have a messy human energy that is always in the present yet constantly changing. I find them endlessly interesting, alive places where there is a great deal of beauty and fragility. They are temporary monuments to the ephemeral nature of existence.

Finding entropy in photography is interesting. It reminds me of the accidental double-exposures we used to do with film, when they were lovelier than either of the originals.

Another photographer, Lisa Rienermann, has a show called Type the Sky, a playful and clever combination of negative space and alphabet forms. She photographs the sky from ground level, allowing the rise of the buildings to hape the sky into letterforms. It sounds contrived, but the photographs are interesting before you notice that the sky is a recognizable shape.

She keeps a visual journal, too.

 

Mlle A by Fabienne Rivory

Fabienne Rivory is a mixed media artist who combines photography with painting–she uses ink or gouache and combines it digitally with photography. She begins by blending two photographs, often landscapes, then adding the color. The startling contrast of the color and the black-and-white photograph adds more to each part of the media.  Her “Saison Grise” (literally, Gray Season) is a barely colored landscape that is both evocative and almost sad.

Evelin Kasikov is a graphic designer who lives and works in London. She  embroider in CMYK colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the colors in a printer that combine to make thousands of colors). She uses strict grid systems and embroiders in them to form letters and patterns that look both like old comic books and messages from another universe. Her webpage Stitched Colors makes you aware how printing combines color by looking at cross-stitch embroidery.

Have a delightfully creative weekend!

–Quinn McDonald is always amazed at other artist’s ideas.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: creativity coaching, mixed media, phootography, photographic alphabets, transitions

A Poem for Solstice

Carole Dwinell is a graphic designer and poet. This poem seems perfect to celebrate the longest day of the year.

MOONSTRUCK

from robinyoga.com

i am

older and wiser now,

it’s true.

but i have a secret.

it’s the moon.

believe me,

it doesn’t just

hand in the sky

with footprints in moondust

and litter of rockets.

no.

it’s a cookie.

crisp, cold silver sugar

to melt

in my mouth.

placed on the skyshelf

and hid until dark

untouched.

then each month

you can eat it.

one small bite at a time.

Filed under: Creativity Tagged: longest day, poetry, solstice

Creativity Slams to a Stop

Many of the places I teach think they want creative solutions managed by creative people. Often that thought doesn’t get out of the Inbox, much less out the door. Why not?  If you are a creative leader, worker, or thinker,  maybe these 10 reasons sound familiar:

“We’ve always done it this way, there is no reason to change.”
“The boss doesn’t like change. It’s upsetting.”
“Why stir up trouble? Things are OK now.”
“Just get this assignment done, then we’ll talk.”
“The director sets the way we get things done. And your idea is not it.”
“Your idea will require too much [time, energy, money, people]“
“Who died and made you CEO?”
“How do you know this will work? Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. . . “
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

You’ve heard these at work, but how many of them have you believed?  How many of them have you said? Change causes upheaval as it works.

from Biocultural Science and Management, http://13c4.wordpress.com/author/13c4/

There is the enthusiasm stage, where the idea sounds good. Then there is the work stage, where all your co-workers redefine “collaboration” into “if it fails, it’s your fault.”

That’s the liminal stage–where the work is started, but not finished. The change is happening, but you can’t quite see it working.  The eggs are broken, the omelet isn’t shaping up yet.

The liminal stage is a time that has to happen, but it is the time of most resistance. Focus on that part–on pushing through. It will test your creativity fully. If you give up, a part of your creativity will wither away. This is the time to call on your Inner Hero to be an advocate. Your Inner Critic already has everyone else at the office.

How will you stand up for your creativity today?

—Quinn McDonald has been listening to Baba O’Reilly again.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Inner Critic Tagged: creativity at work, resisting change, thinking outside the box

Catching Up on News

Instead of a thoughtful, long post on a deeply meaningful topic, I’m catching up with news. I’ve done two thoughtful articles in two days, and I couldn’t make it three for three.

 

Sycamore bark, gel medium and ink on Monsoon Papers.

The newsletter: It’s going to happen–soon!  I’m going to use Mail Chimp, which will allow you to subscribe and unsubscribe without my having to do the administrative work. And it will look like a designed newsletter, not like every other email you receive. But yes, it will be email. I’ll announce it on the blog with a link to my website, where the sign-up page will live. If everything works well, it will happen in the next 10 days.

The poetry class: Will start in early August. I know a lot of people go on vacation in August, but that may be the best time to start a poetry class. It will be six weeks long. We will not focus on traditional poetry forms (sonnets, epic poems, elegy, renga) except as definitions. We will explore shorter forms, like haiku, quatrains and quintains. We will practice imagery, metaphor, personification, allusion, rhyme schemes, line length, and punctuation. We’ll write poems and pieces of poems. Like collage, pieces of poems are scraps that can be combined to form surprising word images.

Registration will open on my website on July 1, with payment though PayPal or check. There will be a notice on the blog.

Using Yahoo Groups. The poetry class will be run on a Yahoo Group. After looking at many ways to do it, the Yahoo Group is a place that is private, has no ads, allows for each person to post, comment, and participate at the level they want. It makes sense for a writing class.

Paying it Forward: I haven’t taught an online class in a long time, but always  donate part of the price of the class to a charity. This time, the donation will be to Heat Relief, a group of City employes who use donations to supply the homeless with fresh drinking water in our broiling summer. The city has turned off most of the public drinking fountains, and many homeless adults and children die of heat stroke and lack of water. This is a grass-roots organization, so I will use the money to buy the water and deliver it to one of the locations. (Yes, it will be plastic bottles, and yes, the bottles are picked up by other volunteers for recycling.)

Madeline Island Class: I’m doing some give-aways to people who attend the class in Madeline Island, Wisconsin on July 22-26. I know it is expensive, so there will be four prizes, drawn throughout the week:

1. A month of free creativity coaching. Once you experience it in class (each person will experience at least one session that week), you will fall in love with the process that helps you free yourself from your sticky story and live the live you want. (A $324 value)

2. Two $50 gift cards; one each to Dick Blick and Daniel Smith.   That should help you continue working on what you started at the retreat.

3. Three packs of Strathmore Ready-Cut paper, the kind we will use in class. There are 25 sheets in a pack, so three people will be able to create a lot of inner hero pages when they get back home.

The combined value is just over the price of the class, and while i could not afford to give a scholarship, I think this will be a nice way to thank people for coming. You can read about the class here. You can register here.

Upcoming in-Person Classes: I’ll be teaching these three classes at Arizona Art Supply in Phoenix. It’s at the Southeast corner of Indian School and 16th Street. Each class is divided into two sections. The morning section explores the technique, the afternoon is spent making projects with the technique. Register for both morning and afternoon and get a discount.

Saturday, July 13: Monsoon Papers  10:00 am – 4:30 pm.  Make colorful  Monsoon Papers in the morning. Use them for art journaling, folders, photo mats, or envelopes. Then make two accordion folders with your paper in the afternoon.  Read about details or register. Class size is limited to 12 people.

Saturday, August 10: Paste Papers 10:00 am – 4:30 pm.  Learn an easy and beautiful surface-decoration technique using colorful art paste. Then collage postcards with your paper. Registration will be available on my website after July 15.

Saturday, September 7: Loose-Leaf Journaling 10:00 am – 4:30 pm. Create your personal 3-ring binder, then fill it with art journal pages, using different kinds and sizes of paper. I’m very excited about this class–loose-leaf journaling is an exciting new approach. And of course you can keep your poetry in this journal. Registration will be available after August 10.

Remember the tree bark? I pressed it and used it in a collage made with ink, gel medium and Monsoon Papers. That’s the illustration for today. The bark worked particularly well. I have also pressed eucalyptus tree bark, and it presses well, also.

—Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and teacher. She loves doing both.

 

Filed under: Coaching, Inner Critic, Journal Pages, Poetry, Quinn's Classes Tagged: loose-leaf journaling, Madeline Island School of the Arts, monsoon papers, paste papers, QuinnCreative classes

Letting it Go v. Giving Up

It’s a thin line, a shiver of a difference, but it changes the road you are on from a long hard climb up a scree-strewn path to a road you have chosen, maybe not for its easy travel, but because you are willing to walk where it takes you.

It’s the difference between Giving Up and Letting Go.

Whether it’s a decision made in your studio, your buzzing mind, your hollow heart or a closed-in hospital room, giving up is coming face to face with who you are and how much you can give. It’s often unwilling, exhausted, and the only idea you have left. And sometimes it’s made out of fear, anger and retribution. You give up when your effort is no longer rewarded in any way you can recognize. There are no new ideas, no breeze that feels fresh. It’s a feeling of churned up dirt. It may be laced with a feeling unworthiness and emptiness. But not the good kind.

Letting go feels different. Letting go may be shaded by sorrow, but it is lit by strength. Letting go comes from self-knowledge and the ability to give up control, give up expectations of how much you can steer the outcome. You may care, but you have weighed the choices carefully, balanced your ability with how much heart you have left, and you have chosen. Deliberately.

You open your hands, your heart, and breathe in deeply when you let go. You choose. You know it may hurt, but you also know that you are not going to carry that burden any further. Letting go feels open.

Giving up and letting go can both be uncomfortable, but giving up tastes like ashes and letting go is a long cool drink in the desert. You may still have a long way to walk in the hot sun, but you know where you are going.

–-Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and art journaler. She’s done both giving up and letting go. And letting go is done with open hands and open heart, and giving up is done with clenching fists and fear.

Filed under: Coaching, In My Life, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: choosing a life, giving up, letting go

Looking Back, Not in Anger

This is the week that I observe my father and mother’s Yahrzeit, the Jewish memorial for the dead. I’ll light a candle that will burn for 24 hours, and think of my parents, who died almost 25 years apart.

Yahrzeit candle

My father has been dead for 34 years this year. He was a man of few words, and believed in not expressing his emotions, but I know with certainty that he loved me. He helped me with science projects, he showed me how to draw, and he taught me to love and respect books. That’s a lot. Certainly enough for my lifetime.

My mother will be dead 10 years now. When she developed dementia, most of my friends encouraged me to “reconcile” with her. They told me that I needed to forgive her and open my heart and we would have that happy ending everyone wants. She resisted softening (as did I), and my friends promised me misery if I did not achieve this. I would live in guilt and uncertain sorrow for all the days of my life if we did not tenderly hug and cry at the end.

There was no death bed reconciliation. She died leaving me with unanswered questions, uncertain of how to describe my relationship with her, other than “difficult.” I have long forgiven my mother, if forgiving is the understanding that the past cannot be changed.

I’d like to speak to the daughters (and maybe sons) who are counting on that big death-bed reconciliation. It’s OK if it doesn’t happen. It’s consistent with the rest of your life. Even if you say you are sorry for things you don’t regret, your mom (or dad) may not be capable of understanding, forgiving, or changing. They are busy dying. That takes up their attention and their focus. And it should.

When my mother was close to her last breath, I sat with her, and told her that she did not have to struggle any more. I told her that her children were adult and doing well, and she would go to heaven, in which she believed. I told her she would see my father, who was waiting for her there. I said this although my father was an atheist. I said things I didn’t believe, but I knew she wanted to believe.

And then I absolved her of ties and unfinished connections.  Yes, I, the wayward daughter, who had no right to step into the role of absolver, did just that. I did not ask for forgiveness. This was not about me. I accepted her exactly as she was–as I could not have accepted her had she not been dying–and let go.  There would still be anger and frustration and confusion, but that prayer was the first step to striving and replacing it with letting go. I lit a candle, read a poem, and then blew out the candle and watched the smoke rise up in the room. I drove the 100 miles back home, and was not surprised, when, two days later, I got the call that my mother and the woman in the next bed had died.

That was ten years ago. There are still unanswered questions, and what I have come to understand is that there always will be. Not every question has to have an answer. Some questions get honed into better questions. And some questions change your behavior so you don’t repeat the pattern again. That’s what death will do for you if you let it. Even without reconciliation.

—Quinn McDonald knows that sometimes reconciliation is not a goal. Living with questions will do just fine instead.

Filed under: In My Life Tagged: accepting death, death bed reconciliation, life and death

FUD: Coming Back into Style

A few days ago, I heard an interview with a software developer, and he used the word “FUD” (rhymes with Dud),  short for “Fear, uncertainty and doubt.” He continued, “It’s what people use to persuade you that they are right, you know, to scare you into believing what they want to do is best.”

Print paper, marbled with ink. Pitt pen, watercolor pencil.

The word has been around since the 1920s, but it was popularized by Gene Amdalh when he left IBM to start his own company. Amdahl said that IBM sales staff would use FUD to encourage employees to stay with IBM products instead of risking something new.

What a word. It’s perfect for today’s way of thinking.  It looms large in politics and religion, but we use FUD in almost every conversation when we want to persuade people do listen to us.

A few days ago, I noted on Facebook that my car had been broken into. No damage, and the only things taken were a USB cord originally plugged into the phone charger for the car.  A box of Kleenex, a tried up container of hand wipes, and a half empty bottle of Armor-All were taken. In a nod to irony, my mother’s quilt, finally retrieved, was untouched..

Someone left me the comment that the thief could have taken my garage door opener, checked my registration for my address and was now coming after me. She suggested I “watch out.”  FUD. What possible use could that remark be? She didn’t ask, but I was over 32 miles from home that day. Most thieves prefer to do their work without a lot of driving. I had taken the garage door opener with me, as I don’t leave anything plastic in the car in the summer.

Thanks to contributor Pete for this graphic

FUD. Easy to believe, because an easy solution offered by someone else offers a faster solution than trusting our own logic, intuition and experience. Taking risks and measuring progress and defining success seems so much harder. And it is. But FUD works only if we let it work, and almost never if we begin to ask careful questions whose answers will open the map and point us in the right direction.

–Quinn McDonald will mud-wrestle fear before she uses it as a reason for decision making.

Filed under: In My Life, Inner Critic Tagged: decisions based on fear, re-thinking fear

Saturday Creative Spark

Mehmet Ali Uysal’s Ten / Skin © 2012

Mehmet Ali Uysal is a Turkish artist with a great sense of humor. He starts with a common object, a clothespin, let’s say, and changes what it does. The reaction is to stop in a space you would never even consider and look, smile, or begin to think about the space and the use of space as we go through life.

Clouds are the perfect symbol of the ephemeral–they appear, disappear, move, cast shadows, change shape and amaze. In the desert, clouds are rare most of the year. In New England, a cloudless day usually makes the news. But what about indoor clouds? Dutch photographer Berndaut Smilde’s creates his own clouds, in beautiful rooms, to otherworldly results.

He has a careful process blending humidity and air flow, but the best thing is watching the cloud drift. If you are in a hurry, it starts at 01:23 in this video.

Ogilvy, France (a branch of the original Ogilvy and Mather) created a clever series of billboards for IBM. Normally, billboards are eyesores, something we want to avoid. This series of billboards help city dwellers cope with the environment a bit better. There are billboard benches and ramps, and even a billboard that helps you stay dry if it’s raining. This is a clever blend of creativity and marketing, not offensive, not loud, just simple. Olgivy’s trademark is simple.

Canadian photographer Ulric Collette is fascinated with the familiarities of of family features. In his photographic work, he blends facial halves (right and left) of two related people to show relationships both physical and photographic.  Some of the photographs are startling, but the one that fascinated me the most was the combined image of the two brothers in row six, right side. Amazing family resemblance.

Have a creative weekend!

–Quinn McDonald is amazed at the ability of art to transport.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: creative billboards, creativity in photography, cretaivity coach, sculpture

Changes in Summer

People laugh when I tell them there are clear seasons in Phoenix. “What?” they joke, “Hot, Hotter and Hell?” We have shifts in seasons. Yes, it has been 112 degrees F (44.4C) already. But there are progressions I love to pay attention to.

Dust storm rolling into Phoenix, courtesy komo news.

The sun rises relentlessly earlier until June 22. That’s the longest day, and after that, even though the two hottest months are still ahead of us, the days taper slowly to a later dawn and an earlier sunset. But it is very slow at first.

Today, for the first time, when I got up at 4:00 a.m., it was too hot to leave the door open. Once it doesn’t get below 85 F (29.5 C) I don’t leave the sliders open. By the time I had put on walking clothes, sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses, the sun was up over the horizon.

That day it becomes too hot to leave the door open also signals the beginning of Monsoon Season. Not officially, of course. We need to have three consecutive days of a dewpoint over 55 for that. But once it gets too hot to open the sliders, we start to get afternoon clouds. And the humidity inches upwards. After that, it’s no longer a dry heat.

The oranges, lemons, and grapefruit stop growing. They are bright green now, and will stay that way till October.

First picking of last years lemon crop. The table is six feet long.

Oranges are the size of ping-pong balls; grapefruit the size of oranges. Lemons are small; I don’t see them yet, but last year the tree (still damaged from a lightning strike five years ago) had 300 lemons.

The pool is still cool, but no longer crisp. In another three weeks, it will feel warm to get into it, then the cooling power comes from getting out. You dry fast, and it feels cold. Then you get in a warm pool again.

The figs are still green and hard. It will be July before they are ready to eat.

Now is the season to bring the plants in pots  inside because the pots get too hot during the day. Now is the time to water the thirsty plants twice a day. This years new plants won’t survive without twice a day watering. My two new gopher plants and the bird of paradise plant need help.

Red Bird of Paradise (also called Mexican Bird of Paradise).

Now is the time to be glad I replaced the frozen and dead Natal Plum with rosemary, which is tough and survives our heat.

This is the season of daily changing the hummingbird feeders, as it spoils in the heat. Sometimes it turns into syrup, as the water evaporates and the sugar stays.

When I walk in the morning, the ice in the bottle won’t last. If there is any water left, it will be warm when I get home. I shut off the hot water in the washing machine; the cold water comes out of the tap at 105 degrees. If I want to wash delicates in cold water, I have to add ice to the washing machine. That will be true till early September.

This is the time of heavy heat. I spend most of my days indoors. I saw my first young child standing in the street in front of the Parks and Rec. pool,  waiting for the parents to drive up with the car. When the car drove up, the kid’s flip-flops had melted to the street. Welcome to summer in Phoenix.

–-Quinn McDonald is blending strawberries and yogurt and freezing it. It’s cold and will pass as popsicles.

 

Filed under: Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: nature in phoenix, summer in Phoenix