Art Takes Different Eyes

It seemed like a good idea when I signed up for two art classes this semester. I work at the Mesa Art Center and want to get to know the other instructors. My spouse is 2,500 miles away, and I am setting up a new business–having a built-in art break sounded like a stroke of genius.

I signed up for watercolor and basic drawing. While I’m an artist, I’m not an illustrator, and wanted to learn some illustration skills for the visual journaling class I teach. There were two different equipments lists, and I ran around two different art supply stores getting what I needed. At least both classes has a drawing board and pencils in common.

That was the last thing they had in common. Drawing is all about seeing the detail and proportion and getting it exactly right. Watercolor is about seeing the heart of the idea and capturing it in the fewest possible lines. My drawing teacher walked past, and showed me how to use a pencil to get the angle between two pieces right. My watercolor instructor walked past, looked at my attempt to get the colors exactly right and said, “So, who’s winning?” Sadly, the answer was “nobody.”

Drawing is about watching carefully, seeing exactly so you can get the same thing on paper. Watercolor is about watching carefully, seeing exactly, so you don’t put it on paper, but give the viewer enough hints to get your meaning.

Impossible, I thought. If only things were more like writing, I’d bet better at being an illustrator. But, in fact, drawing is exactly like writing. If you don’t get the dialog down precisely, your story will sound flat and uninteresting.

If you spell out every detail you will bore the reader.  Skip an important detail and you will lose the reader. Like a watercolor artist, a good writer will know the bones of the story and get them down. The rest is up to the reader’s imagination. A right balance of imagination and good writing makes a book come alive and echo through the decades as powerful writing.

So I swing back and forth, being exact, being clear, painting, drawing and writing down life to make it come alive for others. And to make some meaning for myself.

–Quinn McDonald is an exhausted art student, writer, and certified creativity coach. She also runs seminars in journal writing, business writing, and presentations. In her spare time, she prays that the mattress for her bed shows up soon, as sleeping on the bed slats does nothing for her sense of perspective. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.

Image: writing sample: cnx.org

Super Bowl in the (Shaded) Sun

The Super Bowl is being played this weekend in my new home town. OK, so it’s in Glendale, on the northwest side of Phoenix, and I’m on the other side, but the 70,000 extra people have distributed themselves fairly evenly over the freeways, so I’ve seen them.

Now, I haven’t been here all that long myself, but I adapted to the Phoenix way of life really quickly. And here’s how I can tell who is from outta town:

1. Locals see your blinker light and wave you ahead. Outtatowners speed up to pass you.

2. Locals know that the numbered “streets” are East of Central St. in Phoenix and numbered “avenues” are West. Everyone else is lost.

3. It rains here. This year more than last. Local Phoenix-people built roads through dry river beds because, well, they are dry. Now they are flooded. The roads are closed. If any of your Mapquest directions include McKellips at Rio Salado, bring a map. The Rio Salado (salted), which is often seco (dry), is now andale (move fast) and full of aqua fria (cold water). Oy. (oy.)

4. Locals argue endlessly over which is a bigger waste of money–the light rail that disturbs traffic in mid-town, or the inflatable dam used to hold grey water and form an artifical lake in Tempe. Outta towners wonder why we had to build a stadium in a city that already has three. Oh, yeah, because the one for the Super Bowl has a retractable roof. We didn’t have one of those yet. A retractable roof? What for? Oh, sure, it will reduce traffic in mid-town.

5. Locals know that places like Flagstaff, The Grand Canyon and Window Rock have bitterly cold winters, with temperatures close to zero and lots of snow. They are at a higher altitudes. In sympathy, locals wear parkas even though it is in the 50s here. Outta towners wear shorts and laugh.

So welcome to my new world. Please enjoy the sun, the blue sky, the wonderful food and friendly people. But watch out for those turning lanes. Locals don’t understand them, either. Best to just stay out of them and make only right turns.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and a trainer in writing and public speaking. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved

Competitive What?

Competition can keep quality high and people engaged in their work, but too much competition can kill creativity. When the goal of competition is winning, and when one party not only has to win, but enjoy the other side’s loss, competition becomes bullying.

I’ve seen some ugly competition in my life. Managers pitting employees against each other for a raise, a better office, or an emotional boost. What started as a friendly game ends up as a cut-throat attack, ending with anger, bitterness, or a new job.

Yesterday, I saw the ultimate irony–competitive yoga. No kidding. The competition involved the difficulty of poses and how long you could hold them. Yoga, or at least the yoga I take, is diametrically opposed to competition. It is a way to bring energy into yourself, to release stress, to challenge only yourself to achieve small victories that also feel physically good.

What’s next–taking steroids to win the yoga competition? I think the whole competitive sports push has gone too far. And I’m saying it right before the Super Bowl, too. Here’s an idea–divide sports into two competitions–those for people who take drugs and steroids and a competition for those who don’t. That will let the pumped up, champing at the bit players have their day, and the lower-key athletes who want to pit their challenges largely around their own skills and drills have a place to compete against others like them.

And for heaven’s sake, if you are interested in competitive yoga, stay away from my mat. I’m meditating, and that, at least for now, is not yet competitive.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved. Image: www.yogatherapycenter.org

Tutorial: Collage Background (3)

The background of a collage is held together visually by a pattern, a color, a texture, or a mixture of all three. I’ve come across a background technique that is easy to learn, but complicated to master.

It can be done with pencil, colored pencil, ink, crayon, or anything that draws a fine line. The examples below show the technique on handmade paper, and the spots are petal inclusions.

Prepare a sheet of collage background paper by painting or using handmade paper. Using a pen, colored pencil, or other instrument that will draw a fine line, draw a line across the paper, as straight as you can. The trick here is not to be perfect, but to let your imperfections make this a beautiful background.

Draw another line, as close to the first as possible. As the shapes take place, vary one line a bit, then follow that outline for a while. At the bottom of the page, you will have a background of interest, texture and shape that you can then fade by blending or painting over with transparent washes. I found that using color defined the area and that coloring in the space between the line created a drawing in itself that required little else.

You can also try this with pencils of varying hardness and watercolors. If you blend watercolor pencils (aquarells), you will get a much different effect.

Have fun!

(c) Quinn McDonald, 2008. All rights reserved. Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. She teaches journal writing and collage at the Mesa Art Center.

Beads With a Past, Beads With a Future

They were in a junk shop. Lying behind some chipped cups–easy to miss. Dusty and forgotten, the string of beads were just one more thing someone was trying to move out of their house. I picked them up. They were agates, mostly. A few carnelians mixed in. All the color of the desert sunset, sand and canyons.

Their age was proven by their shape. Most of the holes had been made with bow drills–the opening wider than the center. Some were chipped, some polished by years of being washed over by blowing sand. All of these beads were old, some ancient, and all had come from desert dwellers. A few were from the Tuareg, who dye their clothes with indigo, and are imprinted with their own dyes, so their skin is often various shades of blue. They carry salt through the desert–pillars of salt, much like the one Lot’s wife was supposed to have turned into–to sell at the end of their trip for supplies needed back at home.

Others came from the American desert, traded for skins and knives, maybe guns. Some are so old that they were drilled and worn about the same time humans felt a need to wear clothing for protection, warmth, and adornment.

I picked up the beads and their weight held histories and geographies I couldn’t imagine. They were strung with cotton string, tied with a tag that said, “prehistoric beads, money.” I picked them up and paid for them, not a lot considering the weight of their past.

They came home with me, and I washed off the dirt of time and the recent store dust. Then I strung them, adding a gold clasp and a few gold spacers so the necklace would turn gracefully at the neck and not depend on rubbing and catching on the old beads’ cracks.

It’s a simple piece, eloquent in its own way. It doesn’t need much else. When I wear it, I can hear the desert wind blowing and the song of tribes long gone.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist who teaches memoir writing. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) Image and story, 2008. All rights reserved.

Who Will Find Your Blog?

Blogs, like the rest of the Web, are fickle. Lots of volume, lots of opinion, not much fact, not a lot of step-by-step, proven information. Because the stock market runs much the same way–on fickle opinion, it’s interesting to watch both, and see what conclusions appear.

Whose blogs are most popular? According to WordPress, at least for people people using Wordpess, the CNN political ticker and I Can Has Cheezeburger, a site at which people post pictures of their cats, with captions written in a special language called “lolcat.” There are so many submissions that viewers get to vote on ones they like the most, and those are the ones put on the front page.

The blogs that work, it seems, are those that track polls and those that are fun. Just like real life, this internet.

I envy those blog stats. Mine are very different. The more I post free tutorials, the more readers I get. But more free downloads is not my goal. When I post think-pieces, communication pieces (I design and run training programs on writing, presenting and communicating), I don’t get nearly the readership. In fact, in the last two days, while I was traveling and running a training program, and not posting free tutorials, my readership dropped an astonishing 96 percent. I had fewer readers yesterday than in any time since I wrote the first blog over a year ago.

It’s frustrating. People have adjusted the key words on their feeds and aggregators to pick up free tutorials, free samples, and free images, but then move on. Because I was an early adopter of web commerce, I’m always a bit surprised at how much time is spent surfing and how little diving.

Yesterday I found a link coming into my site that I didn’t recognize. When I checked it, I saw that a photograph I took appeared in another blog, credited to someone else. Now this was not a professional shot, but I have a clear copyright message, both as a permanent page and under each blog. I’m guessing that it means nothing–if you can move it, you can take it–a sort of Wild West out there in cyberspace.

Still, I read about blogs that have thousands of visitors a day. That’s not the point. How many people leave comments? How many people make purchases or have their minds changed? Web 2.0 was supposed to be more about communicating and transactions and less about skimming over the surface, reacting.

Web 2.0 is turning out to be remarkably similar to Web Original–lots of spinning, not a lot of weaving. Take a look at what the search words are that lead people to your blog. See how often the word “free” is used. It’s a good wake-up call.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com Image: Quinn McDonald. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.

Get the Most From Your Coaching Session

When someone becomes a life- or creativity coaching client of mine, I send them a letter of agreement. It explains the details in coaching that are important–the telephone number to use for the call, how long a session lasts, and a few requests that surprise people.

Almost no one expects that coaching focuses on one thing at a time. It’s difficult to persuade people that multi-tasking is a myth. The way to prove this is to try coaching people who are deeply involved in multi-tasking.

Coaching happens (for my clients) on the phone. After I developed neck and shoulder problems, I used a headset, which gives me crystal clear sound. It amplifies the crunching, chewing, and drinking noises of clients snacking or eating an entire meal while being coached. It also amplified the keyboard clicks of clients who check their emails, text message, read IMs and yes, play games during a coaching session.

Here’s how you can get the most out of your coaching session:

—Coaching is an activity that requires listening, answering questions, thinking through complex emotions and motivations and connecting behaviors with consequences. Come prepared to take some notes, maybe in a notebook or journal, so all the notes stay together.

—Before you make the call, get a drink, grab a snack, go to the bathroom. Then you are ready to spend time on the phone without distractions.

— You can’t concentrate on an email and think about your life. Put other people aside and focus just on your needs for the moment.

—Let your other calls go to voicemail. You can’t talk to your coach, shift your concentration and energy to another phone call and pick up where you left off with the coach. Get back to your life when you are finished with a coaching session.

—A lot of coaching involves asking questions. I don’t demand instant answers. Take time to think. If I ask you, “When is your energy low?” I don’t expect you to have the answer instantly. I am willing to wait while you think. However, if I hear you keyboard clicking, I will think you are Googling for an answer. Hint: it’s not on Google.

—Ask questions if you don’t understand what I am asking. If I ask, “When is your energy low?” and you don’t know if I mean after what activity or what time of day, ask. If you answer every question with “I don’t know, tell me,” I’ll be happy to give you examples, but your questions make the answer clearer for you.

—I don’t give advice. We can explore choices, options, and your ideas. If you are out of ideas, I’m happy to toss out some for you to react to. But I don’t tell you what to do, think, or be. That is always your choice. If I toss out an idea, it is not a directive. Generally I’ll ask what you think about the idea. You are not required to like it. You can hate it, use part of it, or come back with another idea you like better.

—Coaching is about you. If I tell you what to do and you blindly do it, then you aren’t involved in your future. If making decisions is new to you, you might find the idea of trying out ideas interesting or intimidating. Let me know how you feel and we can explore choices. That’s the joy of coaching. It involves support, encouragement, choices and consequences. You’ll have time to think and be silent. So will I.

If every second is filled with something, there is no time to process information, think of consequences, or process information to compare and contrast ideas and results. Thanks to the way the human brain processes multiple simultaneous activities, it’s apparently becoming rare to really delve deeply into any one subject or relationship, so while the electronically connected are collecting information about a wide range of topics, the depth just isn’t there anymore.

When you work with me, it’s all about you. And I’ll ask you to get away from your computer, TV, DVD player, iPod and every other electronic gadget. I’ve had clients make huge leaps when they concentrate on themselves. And that’s how it should be.

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach, writer, and seminar leader. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008. All rights reserved.

Image: www.setfocus.it

Hospital Room in Hell

A client of mine, a writer, was recently hospitalized. Getting better is low on the list of what you do in a hospital.

Gone are the days of the angels of mercy, making sure you have no physical or psychological needs. No, this is not a slam at nurses. Hospitals are run by Byzantine rules and regulations that focus not on getting well, but on administering the rules of insurance company and collecting records and money for pharmaceutical companies. Nurses are overworked and stressed. The natural reaction tothe stress and rush in their life is to reduce the patients to units to be checked off.

That’s where the problem starts. When you are ill, you can’t be a proper consumer of medical care. (You can’t ‘be’ a patient. You are a consumer of medical care, responsible for all the things consumers are responsible for–good product, good service–which, unfortunately, you are not allowed to control.) Patients, sapped of energy by illness, simply can’t be effective advocates for their care. So care suffers.

Here is the writer’s take on the experience:

I.
Keys crackling metal against metal
One key shakes free and
Hinges squeal as the door pushes
Into my space

II.
“Why don’t you stretch a bit? You can use the toilet.”
“I don’t have to go.”
“But I have time now.”
“I don’t have to go.”
“Then don’t be ringing that buzzer when you do.”

III.
The light hangs from the ceiling
This square of space
Always lit day and night.
Always turned to the same brightness
Nothing dimmer
Nothing lighter.
Day and night measured
By breakfast, lunch and dinner.

IV.
“Can you charge my computer?”
“I’m busy writing notes.”
“If you plug it in now, it will be ready after report.”
“I said I was busy.”
“It’s the only thing I can do in here.”
“Take a nap. You need rest, not a computer.”
“I’m not tired.”
“I’ll get you some medication.”
“For what?”
“To help you sleep.”

V.
The polyfill mattress sags beneath its vinyl cover
And lies on the floor, half of my space
The pillow is a folded blanket.
Why no pillowcase I ask but there is no answer.
I fall asleep on the linoleum, head resting on my arm.

VI.
The wall speaker crackles when I push the buzzer.
“Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom.”
“I have to go to report soon.”
“How long will I have to wait?”
“You should have taken care of business when I was in there earlier.”
“Can I have my computer?”
“You should be resting.”
“I just woke up.”
“I can get you something to help you relax.”
“Please, I’d really like my computer.”
“I have to go to report.”

* * *

In this case, the writer is also a patient in a mental ward. Not in some crumbling, forgotten madhouse from the 1800s. No, this is mental medical care in the 21st century in the most powerful country in the world. Depending, of course, on how you define power.

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach and training developer for business communications. She helps people express what they mean by writing and speaking. Even if what they have to say is difficult, bad news, or involves conflict. Because Quinn believes people should be able to reason with each other. (c) 2008 All rights reserved.

“Soft Skills” Hard to Learn

Mention that you teach writing, a key business skill, and a software instructor will say, “Oh, a soft skill. I don’t teach those.”

There are a lot of computer programs (called ’software,’ incidentally) that are hard to learn, no doubt, but that shouldn’t make the basic skill of writing a ’soft’ skill. Tagging a whole body of knowledge as ’soft’ makes it sound unimportant, not as good as ‘hard’ and probably not worth learning.

Look at the power in words that have ‘hard’ in them–hardball is playing tough, hardcore is uncompromising, hardshell it tough and protective. Hardheaded is single-minded and persistent. Hard news is important, soft news is cheap, starchy filler. No one wants to be soft-headed, softhearted, or an old softie.

So why call the important skill of writing a soft skill? In the world of web 2.0, writing is vital. Judging from the number of unintelligible emails, confusing instructions, unclear requests, and rambling directions I’ve read in the last two years, there are a lot of people who need to learn how to write, and write clearly.

Perhaps it is because a software program can be learned in a day or two, and writing takes months, even years, to master. Some people never do. It is a skill that some are born with, and others will never understand. And that makes writing clearly a hard skill to master.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who develops writing courses for businesses. She teaches Writing for the Web; How to Write A Good Article, Beginning to Publication; Writing and Giving Powerful Presentation and other, well, soft skills courses. See her work at QuinnCreative.com

–Image of soft-serve ice cream: www.cactice.com

Choosing by Picture

Facebook does it. So does My Space. In fact, almost every website does it–post pictures of people who are in the company or in the public eye. We do it for recognition, and because people look at other people–even if it’s just in a photograph. In fact, eye-tracking studies have shown that people will look at the photograph of another person, particularly at the eyes, before they read copy.

I’ve become uncomfortable with the fact that organizations I belong to ask me to post my picture in my listing or on the page they provide me with. One of the facts that has come out in research on hiring practices is that we are drawn to people who look like we do, and who are similar to us. So a blond hiring manager is likely to offer the job to another blond, although the reason given is “the applicant is a good fit.”

So I did a small experiment. I took a picture of a much younger, thinner me and posted it on two listing sites for one month. I then removed it and put up an unfortunate picture taken of me squinting into the sun, with strong shadows under my eyes. I left it up for the same amount of time. While it’s not a scientific survey, the results were not surprising: the month the younger me was representing my company, I got almost twice as many requests for information.

I think that in listings that include photos, we unconsciously (or perhaps deliberately) choose the person who is attractive–young, slim, fit, good-looking. We don’t look at the qualifications first. We go for the glamor. So I’m beginning to wonder if it might not be a good idea to not post photos on the Web. I don’t want to go as far as to post someone else’s picture, but I’d rather not be eliminated for race, gender, age, weight, hairstyle, or the amount of shine on my teeth.

What do you think? Is it important to have up a good-looking photo on your website or listing? And if you aren’t good-looking, what’s an honest alternative?

Image: 1912 class of Corsicana High School on www.rootsweb.com

–Quinn McDonald is a trainer in business writing and speaking. She is a speaker with the “Professional” designation from the National Speaker’s Association. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved.