Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 82

Book Review: Extreme Origami (+ a Giveaway)

A book review on a different paper art: origami. I’ll give the book away on Tuesday morning, and the winner will be posted here. To win the book, let me know in the comments. The book is hardback, and heavy, so this time its new home is in the 48 contiguous states.

Book cover

Title: Extreme Origami

Sub-title: Transforming dollar bills into priceless works of art.

Author: Won Park

 Details:  Hardback. Race Point Publishing, 2012. Size: 11.25 inches x 8.25 inches.  Page count: 144. 20 projects and more than 1000 illustrations on folding. Price; $25.00 U.S. $28 Canada, £16.99 UK.

Content:

Introduction
Terms and Symbols
Are You Ready to Take the Extreme Origami Challenge?
Instructions for: butterfly, toilet, tank, spider, fox, pig, swordfish, sea turtle, ox, Pegasus, praying mantis, stag beetle, car, fighter jet, bat, scorpion, koi fish, stegosaurus, dragon, formula 1 race car.
Acknowledgments
About the author

What I liked: You have to like a book that uses only American dollar bills to fold into shapes of everything from a toilet to a formula one race car.

The hardback book is beautifully designed. The pages are rich, cream-colored stock with clean black type.

In the front there are explanations of lines, folds, directions.

The completed pieces make the best use of the printing on the dollar bill, so that the pieces appear to have eyes in the right place.

The instructions are always on the right side, or start on the right side, making it easy to keep the book open flat while you follow directions.

The illustrations (of which there are many) are in clean olive green and white and clear.

What I didn’t like: I discovered that Won Park used dollar bills because they are hard to tear during the hundreds of folds and bends it takes. In other words, it’s too intricate for me. I realize it’s called Extreme Origami, and that means it’s way over my head. And it is. You have to have some experience with origami to be able to complete any of these.

Some of the large photographs don’t look as appealing as the smaller photographs that accompany the directions. It would have been been fine to show the completed work at 150 percent instead of much larger.

–-Quinn McDonald is a writer who is busy writing a book about conversations with the inner critic.

 

 

 

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: extreme origami, paper arts

Latkes: Potato Pancakes for Hanukkah

Thanksgiving is barely over, and already I’m talking about latkes–potato pancakes normally eaten at Hanukkah. (Starts at sundown on December 8 this year).

Crispy and light, delicious! Not the heart-attack-on-a-plate of yesteryear, either.

Latkes can be eaten by anyone, and not just at Hanukkah. They are not a diet food, however. Not that you asked. You can eat them as hash browns for breakfast, too.

Traditionally latkes are eaten with homemade apple sauce or topped with sour cream. I’ve eaten a lot of bad latkes in my life–left in the oven to “warm” —where they will just get mushy, toaster latkes (No. Just No.), and low calorie latkes. (What?)

I’ve worked with latkes over the years and like to mix the potato with apples, sweet potatoes, onions and carrots, all grated with the same grater. Lowers the carbs, adds a lot of juicy flavor. Here’s the recipe:

Hanukka Latkes (Potato pancakes) Serves 4. Time: 1 hour. Active time: 20 minutes.

Put away your measuring spoons. I cook without measuring, and for this recipe, so can you.

One large baking potato (russets are fine)
One large sweet potato–the orange kind
One medium yellow onion
One organic carrot
One organic apple–Gala, Fuji but not Granny Smith or Red Delicious.
Two fresh eggs
Good quality olive oil
One head curly parsley
Salt, pepper, freshly grated nutmeg.

Scrub all vegetables. Peel the onion and apple, core the apple. In a big mixing bowl, grate the potato, skin and all , using a box grater. The biggest holes are the ones that work best. Follow by grating half the onion, all of the apple, and the yam. That order will keep you from weeping as much as if the onion were on top.

Wash the parsley, discard the stems, or save for soup. Cut up half a bunch of parsley into tiny flecks of green. Add to bowl. Add a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Grate about a teaspoon of fresh nutmeg into the mix.

Crack two large eggs into the bowl and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula to mix.

Using a large skillet, cover the bottom with good olive oil and heat till a drop of water spatters. Using a serving spoon, drop a generous spoonful of mix into the pan and immediately pat it thin. You are cooking the potato, so a thick latke won’t cook all the way through. You should be able to fit four into the pan.

Modulate the heat between medium high and medium, but never allow the pancakes to stop sizzling. In about 2 minutes, try to flip a latke. A cooked latke will release easily. It should be crisp and brown. Turn only once, or you get an oil sponge. When all four are done, serve, put in another four and eat yours at the table. The idea that you can make all of them and put them in an oven between layers of paper towel is a myth. They will go from light and crisp to soft and greasy. It’s worth the work of going back and forth to the stove top.

Serve with unflavored Greek yogurt or sour cream and applesauce, below.

Apple Sauce (Serves 4 as a side dish)

Choose 6 organic apples of almost any sort except Granny Smith and Red Delicious.
Optional: Orange juice, vanilla, sugar, honey, cinnamon or nutmeg.

Wash, peel and core the apples. If you hate peeling apples, you can strain the applesauce through a colander at the end. I like cooking them with peels as it makes the sauce pink and gives more flavor.

Cut up the 6 apples into chunks (cut each quarter into 2), put a half cup of water in a saucepan, and add the apples. You can add orange juice instead of water and add a bit of vanilla. I’m a purist, so it’s apples in water. Cover the pan and boil. When the apples reach a boil, stir occasionally. Do not let the pan dry out. When the apples start to disintegrate, help them along with a potato masher. If the result is watery, take off the lid and boil off some of the liquid. Once you have applesauce consistency, strain to remove peels. Return to pan and sweeten to taste with honey, brown or white sugar. If you are diabetic, skip the sugar alcohol substitute sugars (they have drastic gastrointestinal consequences for me) and stevia (not for me, either) and try the least amount of sugar you can handle. Three teaspoons will give you good flavor in the total amount, particularly if you don’t eat a lot of sugar.

Light candles and enjoy!

-–Quinn McDonald loves latkes a bit more than she should. She makes them only once a year.

Filed under: Food & Recipes Tagged: alternative latke recipe, hanukkah, latkes

The Muse Connects

The community pueblo at Wupatki National Monument.

North of Flagstaff, Arizona, are the ruins of the Wupatki Pueblo. In the years between 1100 and 1182, a tribe of approximately 100 Native Americans lived there, in several buildings and a large, complex community room. Within a day’s walk, there were 1,000 other people from various clans. The stones that built the Pueblo are found on the ground in slabs. They are still there today. Their shape is smooth and regular, so stonemasons would not have needed to be hack them out of a quarry, just trim and place and mortar them into place. The walls look, after 900 years, fresh and even and modern.

Wupatki Pueblo is in the high desert, and the climate today is harsh–hot in the day and cold at night. A hundred years before Wupatki was settled, Sunset Crater, a volcano about 10 miles away, erupted, spewing lava and ash for many miles. The ash helped keep moisture in the ground, and the box canyon on which the village is built collected water during rains. The climate may well have been milder, modified by the volcanic explosion. Although some of the buildings are built close to natural wind blocks–canyon walls and arroyos.

The Hopi believe that the lessons learned about living and tending animals, making peace and making war, are still there, taught by the spirits of the village population that died there.

I took a photograph of the community building, showing a wall through a window. I thought about life in that community, the hard work that had to happen every day. And I wondered how the tribes had avoided war for many years.

Collage: Black paper, painted with metallic inks, covered with Japanese washi paper, pierced. Words cut from a history book.

When I got back, and took the idea into the studio, I wanted to make a collage in light and dark, with spaces to see through and spaces that look onto a different view.

For me, found poetry–a gathering of random words into meaningful ones–is like hearing bits and pieces of an ancient conversation.

The poem reads:

It is no longer

good enough to cry

Peace!

We must

Act peace,

Live peace.

For me, the photo and the collage have striking emotional similarities–the look through an opening, the prayer for peace, and the realization that peace is work. It doesn’t just appear, it needs to be acted out and lived. Daily.

The muse brought one from the other. An entirely satisfying experience, all the way around.

Flagstaff is a “Dark Sky” city. No lights shine into the sky at night. Lights that work at night all shine down, toward the earth. At the Wupatki Pueblo, you can see a sky full of stars and the Milky Way, much like they were 900 years ago.

—Quinn McDonald believes she is standing at a point in time, on a road that has been traveled for many years. She has been here before.

Filed under: Journal Pages Tagged: art journaling, calling the muse

Thanksgiving: Tough, Wonderful, or On Your Own.

Thanksgiving is wonderful if you have a bunch of family around. Or it can be miserable. Thanksgiving on your own can be special or a special hell of loneliness. Each Thanksgiving, I post something for those who are along. Here’s a re-cap:

Celebrate yourself on Thanksgiving. Do what makes you feel happy and grateful.

Being Happy on Thanksgiving takes some work, but there are enough links in this article to keep most people busy. (The link to Pete’s Pond works, but they had a rainstorm last night that knocked out the lights).

With your big, dysfunctional family and dreading it? Some tips to help you get through the flying verbal debris at the family Thanksgiving meal.

Some other ways to keep busy on Thanksgiving, if you are not participating.

Several years ago, I found this poem in Annie Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. I’ve read it out loud on Thanksgiving since then. It seems strong and real and grateful to have made it through another year.

Thanks

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out

in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

in a culture up to its chin in shame

living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the back door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you

with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable

unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us like the earth

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is”

–William Stanley Merwin, (1927- ), American poet, winner of both Pulitzer and Tanner prizes.

The author of anti-war poetry in the 1960s, he now focuses on Buddhist and

ecological themes from his home in Hawaii.

—Quinn McDonald is grateful to have survived another cycle of the sun to bring her and her widely-scattered family to Thanksgiving again.

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: S. W. Merwin Thanks, Thanksgiving alone, thanksgiving with dysfunctional family

Madeline Island Gift for the Holidays

Wrap up a free MISA hoodie to give as a gift along with a class registration for Metaphor and Magic (or any other summer class)

Madeline Island has a cute giveaway–sign up for a summer course (I’d love it to be mine, of course) during this weekend, and get a Madeline Island School of Arts hoodie to put under the tree (or next to the Hanukkah menorah or Kwanza candles).

It’s a great idea. You can surprise someone (or yourself!) with a gift certificate to a class, and have a hoodie to keep you toasty while waiting for summer Here’s the small print from the website:

To receive a hoodie, you must register between Wednesday November 21 and midnight on Cyber Monday, November 26, 2012.  We will be in touch with you to get your color and size preference (larger sizes are available to accommodate holiday eating!).

I’m a big fan of the color, too. Mostly, I am a fan of shopping at local stores for the holidays, and giving art handmade by artists whose work you like and admire. Buying locally keeps money in the community and helps small stores stay in business, contribute to the creativity in the community, and make art support your concern, too.

A plug for my Madeline Island class:

July 22-26 2013 at Madeline Island, Wisconsin

Magic and Metaphor: Mixed Media Conversations With Your Inner Critric.

An amazing art retreat in Lake Superior that covers deep writing and intuitive art. What will you do for five days? Join a class of creative explorers and confront your inner critic. You can read more in Quinn’s Workshops at the top of this page.

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Local Arizona Classes coming up in December and January

If you are staying local (or are in Arizona in December or January), I’d love to see you in Tucson, where I’m teaching two classes.

The box of magic words for One-Sentence Journaling.

1. One Sentence Journaling: Does having a journal sound more appealing than writing in one every day? You aren’t alone, and this workshop was designed to help you keep a journal by writing one sentence a day. A daily writing practice creates a GPS system for your inner journey—it helps you figure out where you are and how to get where you want to be. Using exercises including “magic words” and “17 syllables” you will see the power of writing just one sentence.  Explore the possibilities of one meaningful sentence when you write with awareness, intensity and all your senses

When: Thursday, December 6, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: University of Arizona Modular Classroom, 4101 N. Campbell  Ave. Tucson 85719

Cost: $60

Samples of Monsoon Papers

2. Monsoon Papers.      Date: Saturday, January 26 10am – 4pm

Location: U Of A Modular Classroom

4101 N. Campbell Avenue  Tucson, AZ  85719

Cost: $100 + Material Fee $5

Originally created in Arizona’s monsoon storms, this wild surface decoration technique is fail-proof. Pieces of paper transformed with inks and gilding into dark, rich colors or bright, intense ones. It’s messy and unpredictable, so leave your controlling urges at the door—and be surprised at how the paper develops! Use your papers for folders, book projects, constructions, collage.

The two classes in Tucson, are taught through Paper Works, the Sonoran Collective of Paper and Book Artists. While these classes are for Paper Works members, a year’s membership will cost you just $35.

–-Quinn McDonald is not going to get up at 4:30 a.m. on Black Friday. She’s shopping local and from other artists.

Filed under: Inner Critic, Journal Pages, The Writing Life Tagged: Madeline Island School of Art, Quinn's Workshops, tucson

Extreme Self Care (Guest Post)

Today’s post is written by entrepreneur Glenda Waterworth (she and her husband own and run the stamp shop Chocolate Baroque, in England). When she told me about her take on extreme self care, I knew I had to share her ideas (and her art journal) with you.

*     *     *

The last couple of years have been “difficult” for my husband and me. That’s an understatement, but that’s what I do – I put a brave face on it, smile and tell everyone I’m coping just fine. The reality would take too long to go into, but let’s just say it’s been a time of endings and loss and deep emotional pain.

I look back on the worst of that time now and see it as a storm. We had to turn and face into the wind with our heads down, battling against the obstacles churned up and thrown at us. During the storm, all you want is for it to stop. You think your problems will be over when the storm ends, but what actually happens is that the storm unearths and uproots anything that isn’t securely nailed down.

For me, the debris that was left in the wake of our storm – the issues I hadn’t previously “nailed down” turned out to be my own health. I was so busy being the tower of strength for those around me that I had neglected my own physical health and once exposed, it demanded attention.

I have lots of journals on the go, most without a specific theme, but this January I started a “health” journal and stuck in the words “Healthy, strong and active” as one of my goals for 2012.  The journal then sat around for months, untouched.

In April I went through a few weeks of intense pain that eventually resulted in me being given a shot of morphine and admitted to hospital.

I disagreed with the doctor’s preliminary diagnosis and discharged myself rather than go through a battery of tests that I just didn’t believe was right. My own doctor ran some simpler tests to rule out the biggies (cancer) and encouraged me not to cancel our forthcoming holiday.

So a few days later I endured a grueling 400 mile, two day journey to northern Scotland for our first proper holiday in five years and it was there that my real healing began. I rested and reveled in the silence and wild beauty and wrote in my journal about banishing pain from my body.

We drove to remote, windswept beaches and I would load up with painkillers and heat pads and walk as far as I could manage, even if it was just a few minutes.

Ten days into the holiday I woke up without pain for the first time in about five weeks. I wrote about that too, wanting to capture the feeling of ordinariness and the gratitude for it.

I apologized to my body and promised to look after it better in the future. I made a commitment to practice “extreme self care”.

When I got home, I came across my health journal and I realised the word ‘health’ was limiting and had been holding me back from using this journal.  I now call it my Extreme Self Care journal which covers so much more than physical health, though obviously that is a key part of the mix.

Based on some of the writing I had done on holiday, I wrote the mission statement. (Above, left).

I then revisited my ‘healthy strong and active’ page with a favourite journaling technique:

Hold a question, problem or a phrase (as in this case) in your mind then harvest old magazines for words and phrases that call out to you.

Cut them out and put them all onto a large clean piece of paper. Play around with them and see what words come together, what sentences you can form.

Sometimes I find words that I incorporate with my own writing, using the cut out words for emphasis, and that is what I did here to document my experience of fighting pain.

Other times I make a whole sentence from the words such as this example here. I may add my own writing or images to this page later –picking up on phrases that resonate at the time.

As 2012 draws to a close, we know that our storm is over and the bruises are healing, there’s still a little debris to tidy up, but now we can see we are facing a new landscape, washed clean and full of possibilities.  Extreme self care is now part of my life and my mindset and the journal, like me, is a work in progress.

—Glenda Waterworth describes herself as “not perfect, never finished, always experimenting and endlessly curious”.  A desire for a more colourful life led her to quit her career in computing in her mid 30s and start her own creative business.  She now runs a stamp company called Chocolate Baroque from the historic market town of Barnard Castle in England with her husband, Adrian.

[Quinn's note: Visit Glenda's blog and her online stamp company and you'll see that's she's another art instigator.]

Filed under: Creativity, Journal Pages, Links, resources, idea boosts, Opinion, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: extreme self-care, Glenda Waterworth, health care

Be the Creativity Whisperer

Cesar Millan may be the Dog Whisperer, but his method works pretty well for the unruly, leash-tugging creative urge. You know that creative muse–the one you desperately want in your life,  that disappears around the corner and won’t come when called. When she does show up, she runs you ragged. You are off to buy materials and supplies, while your muse stays at home, piling choices on your studio table, and running you ragged with ideas, projects and commitments that you can’t manage.

The Dog Whisperer has a formula. If you’ve watched the show, you already know what it is. It’s on his website: “Through my fulfillment formula exercise, then discipline, and finally, affection.  As the human pack leader, you must set rules, boundaries, and limitations and always project a calm-assertive energy.”

The “calm-assertive energy” comes first. It’s not about being a control freak, it’s knowing that you are the calm leader of your creative energy and your studio.  You aren’t forever using the excuse that you have a coupon and heading out to the craft store. You are centered and know what your project is.

You set the rules, boundaries and limitations for your studio. Here are some good ones to start with:

Know what your project is.
Know what your project is not. If you are going to create a journal page, don’t worry about creating the whole journal.
Leave the studio set up so you can begin. Nothing saps energy faster than having to spend an hour cleaning the studio and another finding what you want to work on.
Put extra materials away. It’s distracting to see unfinished project lying around.
Set a time to start and be there to start the project.
If you have an appointment, set a timer to remind you when to stop. You can’t work deeply if you keep having to check on the clock.
Keep a paper and pencil around to take notes as you work. Once you get to the studio, you will immediately think of “work” that needs to get done before you start. Stay in the studio, make a to-do list. The laundry will still be there when you leave.

The rest of Millan’s ideas work just as well: exercise, discipline, affection.

Exercise is a way to burn off tension in your body. It makes room for creative ideas. While you are exercising, a part of your brain is problem solving. That’s good for your brain and your body. Burn off that exhausting adrenaline energy.

Discipline is not punishment. Discipline allows space and time for deep, meaningful work. Discipline allows you to turn off the phone, shut the computer off and head for the studio. It is a set time to work without guilt or fear.  Discipline is an approach to creative time that includes knowing what will happen–you will work meaningfully, for a set amount of time, on a regular basis.

Affection is allowing yourself to feel good about yourself and your work. Affection is allowing yourself to try and fail, to try something different, to follow a thought or idea until it works or until you know why it doesn’t.

Just as Cesar Millan projects a calm, assertive pack-leader image to his dogs, you can project a calm, assertive creative leader image to your muse. If she pays attention, it might even work!

–Quinn McDonald admits to whispering at her muses occasionally, and sometimes yelling at them, too. She’s working on it.

Filed under: Coaching Tagged: artistic discipline, creativity coach, muse

Saturday Ramble

I wish they’d added a photograph of the product.

When I travel, I love looking at the local phone book to see odd ads. I also look at the business listings, reading the top of the pages, where the alphabetical listing is. They use words to show the range, so you get odd combinations like: Donut-Draperies. Or Hot-House. Importer-Insurance.

This is the ad I found in the phone book of my last trip. I am still laughing at the last line.

OK, on to Saturday rambles. Time to have creative play–maybe with your kids or grandkids. Here is a fashion collage site where you can combine tops, bottoms, and accessories. Beats having to try clothes on your own self while standing under fluorescent lights.

Need photos or textures to download to make your own collage? ImageAfter will help you with a selection of choices. Check the rules to make sure you know the difference between royalty-free and copyright free.

Have to write your own bio for a show or presentation? It’s hard to write your own bio without sounding like you are bragging or being so modest that people don’t know what you’ve done. Copylicious helps you out with some questions and tips.

Woolgathering is the blog of a woman who does a drawing a day. She’s done it for years. She draws ordinary things and it’s beautiful.

—Quinn McDonald is never bored. Even in a hotel room with only a phone book.

Filed under: Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art journal, collage, phone books

What We See Is . . . Well, it Depends

We had just moved into our Phoenix house and I was busy re-potting plants that had been shipped in the moving van. Six days in the dark, in a closed in moving van in August, and I was delighted that all the plants had made it.

Wasp nest in a tree. Paper wasps build beautifully patterned nests.

As I looked around the backyard, I was pleased to recognize a fig and two palo verdes, an orange and. . . another tree that hadn’t fared well lately. It was pretty tired looking. The trees hadn’t been watered in a while, so I set the hose to work, watering the parched ground while I re-potted the plants.

The pots were looking good when a wasp zipped by me, did a U-turn and flew by again. I’m allergic to wasps, but not scared of them. Where was my Epi-Pen? In the medicine cabinet already? In my purse? I didn’t remember. The wasp was gone, so I continued to work. Another wasp flew by, a bit closer.

Stepping back from the potting project I looked around the yard. There, in the tree that I didn’t know the name of, was a wasp nest. About as big as a large orange. Deciding it was time to move some of the re-potted plants indoors, I asked my husband to check out the wasp nest. Did he want to remove it, or was it time to call an exterminator?

He went out into the backyard while I located the Epi-Pen. He came in, smiling. “I know what kind of a tree that is,” he said.

“Really?” I asked. Of the two of us, he is far less likely to be the tree identifier. “What kind is it?”

He grinned. “It’s a grapefruit tree, and that’s no wasp nest, it’s a grapefruit!”

Grapefruit, ready to pick and eat. You can’t do that with a wasp nest.

I was stunned. I was positive I had seen a wasp nest. After all, the two wasps were flying around and. . . I went outside, certain he was wrong. I’d seen the nest. I know wasp nests. But when I looked, it was, indeed, a grapefruit.

The mistake was easy to understand–see the wasp, see the pale round thing, and decide it is a wasp nest. My certainty had been at 100 percent. And it had been 100 percent wrong. So positive it had been a wasp nest, I actually looked around for that nest. Nope, just a grapefruit.

It’s true so often. We see what we expect to see. We are certain what people will say to us, or how they will behave. We are sure when we have no idea at all. We assign people roles, we expect to be hurt, or disappointed. We do this all with great certainty, without knowing at all. After a while it becomes a habit. All in all, I’d rather be surrounded by grapefruits than wasp nests. And that’s what I’m going to expect to see on those trees.

—Quinn McDonald loves grapefruits. The ones on her trees will be ripe in mid-December. Meanwhile, she’s writing her book.

Filed under: In My Life, Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: believing what you see, eye witness, perception is reality

Quotes for your Journal

I’d love to see what you create with these quotes about life, easy and hard:

Hackberry tree filled with seedspods.

Put your ear down to your soul and listen hard.  –Anne Sexton

* * *

The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. –Nelson Henderson

* * *

I know with certainty that a man’s work is nothing but the slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in which presence his heart first opened.  –Albert Camus.

* * *

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. — Mark Twain

—Quinn McDonald has known why she was born for a very long time. She just didn’t want to know it.

Filed under: Creativity, Nature, Inside and Out, Quotes Tagged: life purpose, quotes