Creative Risk. Worth It?

Roadsign: Dangerous but passable

This sign is on one of my favorite motorcycle rides. It seems so much more than a road sign. For me, it was an invitation to do some creative work. Dangerous? Well,  I could make mistakes, I could not like the finished piece. (It’s just a piece of paper.)  It also might be an interesting ride, if I can get over the fear. A little danger can be fun.

A lot of creative work is dangerous, but passable. the ride takes some skill, but that’s the fun.

Journal prompt: In your creative work, what seems dangerous to you?

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. She runs workshops and seminars in raw-art journals.

Prescott, AZ–Found Art

Prescott was the original capitol of Arizona. It’s an old town that’s tucked into mountains high enough to support snow in the winter. This weekend there were broadleaf trees that had turned to bright, brittle yellow. The smell of autumn leaves was unmistakable; I haven’t smelled it since I left the East Coast.

Autum leaves, Prescott © Quinn McDonald, 2009

Prescott is a lovely town, a town that shows art to anyone who wanders into The Raven (either the cafe or the pen-and-paper shop) or Van Gogh’s Ear, one of the art shops that line Whiskey Row.

Prescott also puts out its own art, the town as it is, for anyone to enjoy.  Cortez Street is packed with antique shops that are stuffed with vintage, old, worn, odd, and delightful objects.

The Armadilla (yes, it ends with an ‘a’) Wax Works is a candle factory with a retail shop. It’s at the top of the hill that makes Cortez Street, before the antique shops take over.

This candle factory is in the building of a former bank. Arizona produced a lot of copper in the old days, still does,  so the entire front of the store is still home to the old vault and safe.

The detailed copper molding that is both bold and delicate,  and a sun-mirror that is rich and polished to match the older copper safe wall with the dentil and decorative molding. In some light, you can see the copper has taken a lot of polishing, but it’s thick and hefty and won’t wear out any time soon.

Antique copper moulding and mirror © Quinn McDonald, 2009

On the opposite wall was a grouping of candles and grasses with blossoms. The sun was at the right angle to make it a perfect photo all its own.

Candles from the Armadilla Candle Works, Prescott © Quinn McDonald, 2009

The Raven Cafe is a wonderful old building. I’m a fan of the collages that sprout in bathrooms, and this was no exception. This one seemed to be planned–it had originally been created, quilt-like, a block at a time, then mounted on the wall and continued with paint and pen.

The Raven's Cafe's artful bathroom © Quinn McDonald 2009

This garage was graffiti’d and then painted over unevenly. The resulting unfinished raw art is perfect the way it is.

Garage Mural © Quinn McDonald 2009

The next building was painted when it was too cold. Half the paint popped off in the dry air, leaving a great pattern that looks like an angel food cake.

Peeling Paint, © Quinn McDonald, 2009

Prescott has art around every corner, great weather to enjoy it, and astonishing rock formations around the town. A great place for a quick getaway. If you have time to drive up from Phoenix, don’t take the Freeway. Nothing against I-17, but the scenery is not spectacular. Take a bit longer, go through Wickenburg and Yarnell and see mountains and thumb buttes that will astonish you.

Out of Yarnell, don’t take the switchback road that 89 turns into. Turn left onto Kirkland Road and go through Skull Valley and into Prescott. It’s 10 miles longer and worth every inch.

–Quinn McDonald rides a motorcycle and takes pictures with her iPhone.

What “Being in the Moment” Means

If you ride a motorcycle successfully, you know this–your attention is always immediately around you. Your mind does not wander to the grocery list, the plans for next weekend, or lunch. You are focused on where you are, who is behind and in front of you, and what is happening right now. As you ride in this moment and focus on it, you begin

Image from BestBeginnerMotorcycles at http://tinyurl.com/nbo57f

to know what others in cars are thinking, what they will do. Your circle of awareness expands and you are alert and calm, aware and easy on the bike. As a creative, I know this is a moment of flow that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about. (Watch Csikszentmihalyi’s TED YouTube video.)

This afternoon, I was on the freeway entrance ramp, accelerating and ready to merge with traffic. Behind me, in the lane I was about to enter, was a gray car. When I clicked the signal light, the car slowly accelerated.  I had an instant to make a decision–hit the brakes, hard, or continue to accelerate and merge. Because I was more than two car lengths ahead of the gray car, I hand-signaled and merged. I felt the driver’s flash of anger and although she neither had to brake nor react, she didn’t like my decision. Freed from my own thoughts, I could feel hers.

Although bikes come equipped with turn signals, many motorists don’t see them. When I make a lane switch, merge, or turn left, I make a definite, strong arm movement in which I point to the space I’m going to move to. There is no doubt what I’m going to do. It’s hard to miss.

On the freeway, I changed lanes again, using the passing lane to avoid a turnoff, and joining the speed of traffic, which is fast here in Arizona. Traveling 70 mph on a bike keeps you alert. Traveling 70 mph on a crowded freeway keeps you as alert as you have ever been.

I don’t like to ride in the passing lane, I like to leave it free for cars to pass each other. I crossed into the middle lane,  felt the relief of the pickup who swung into the passing lane and edged past me, and knew without checking that the driver coming up on my right behind me was on the phone. It’s amazing what being in the moment tells you. It informs the way you handle the bike, it feeds you information on your position in traffic.

The car on the right behind me pulled even with me, then dropped back. I checked. Yep, he’s on the phone. Impaired driver. Not in the moment. Not fully engaged in driving.  On the other side, the gray car was now a car length behind me. I knew what she would do 10 seconds before she started her move. She was going to pass on the left, then cut me off and slam on her brakes. This game is incredibly dangerous, it can cause a multi-car accident, but that wasn’t her intent. In her mind, she was justified in punishing an arrogant motorcyclist who took her lane. Had a car done the same thing, she would not have given it a moment’s thought. You ride on the road with a lot of people, and you don’t get to pick any of them.

I couldn’t change lanes, but I slowed slightly to build a space cushion. She cut in front of me sharply and braked hard, but then accelerated, not looking back. She had achieved what she needed to do. She wouldn’t be a problem, and I had not had to brake hard, risking a skid on pavement that hasn’t seen rain in eight weeks.

On the right, the phone talker passed me. His car was not centered in the lane, he wanted to merge into my lane. I wanted to be out of his way, so I checked my left and saw a white car racing up the passing lane. Although the phone-driving had seen me ahead of him, he was not aware of me. I felt his decision before his wheels crossed into my lane while I was even with his back door. He’d forgotten me. I was in his blind spot, and his attention was on his call, not his car.

But I had the passing lane free, so I hit the horn at the same time I moved to the left of the center lane, ready to pull into the passing lane if I had to. Phone driver swerved back into his right lane, and I passed him. He waved apologetically at me, using his phone hand.

This is what driving a motorcycle is like–a constant awareness of the world around you, the emotions and patterns of drivers. You know what is around you in that moment, and it changes in the next. Your mind doesn’t drift or waver, you know just what you have to know to stay upright and moving forward on your bike. It’s why most bikers ride, it’s a feeling like no other. It’s what being in the moment means, and I learned how from Suzy Lightning.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer, and creativity coach. She rides Suzy Lightning, her motorcycle, as often as she can when the weather is good.

Traveling Journals Update: Loose Pages-6.25.09

Some loose pages came back from the traveling journals. These are from Poughkeepsie, NY, pages done by Becky Nielsen.

There are many ways and reasons to keep a journal. A vital reason is to witness world events. We often can’t change anything on our own, but the ability to witness and pass on is enormous. Awareness comes before action.  Thanks for your powerful contribution, Becky.

Becky Nielsen, watercolor on paper

—Quinn McDonald is circulating four journals (and loose pages which she will bind into journals) among strangers who want to share the raw-art-journaling experience. Read more about the journals. Take a peek at some of the images. Join the project by sending an email to rawartjournals [at] gmail [dot] com

Up to the Mogollon Rim

Arizona is not all desert.  During the Mesozoic Age, in a powerful upheaval, about 60 percent of Arizona pushed upward, creating foothills and the desert below. It also created the longest unbroken Ponderosa Pine forest in the United States. The forest contains more pine trees than Maine, and arcs from the Grand Canyon, about 300 miles to the New Mexico border.

The spine of that forest is the Mogollon Rim, the escarpment that rises 7,000 feet above the desert floor, and 2,000 feet above towns that lie along the rim, like Payson, which lies at 5,000 feet above sea level and sees its share of ice and snow in winter.

Mogollon Rim in Payson, AZ

We made the trip from Glendale, on the desert floor to Payson, on the rim, on Sunday. It’s about 100 miles, a two-hour trip. Once you’ve gone the first 30 miles, you won’t see another gas station till you get to Payson. But the scenery is spectacular. Mountains, valleys, creeks unwind in front of you in an amazing show. The road, Route 87 (the Beeline Highway) is a comfortable ride. You start in scrub country, climb through those fitted-rock mountains, see valleys fall away from the highway and mountains rise up again,  until you start seeing pines and high-desert scenery.

After Fountain Hills, you won’t see a town for 30 miles, until you pass a strip club on the East side of Route 87, with a huge sign that says, “Welcome to Sunflower. Topless” It’s the only business visible from the Beeline Highway in Sunflower. The town of Rye appears about 11 miles later, and then, driving around a corner, the town of Payson drops in front of you, surrounded by The Rim. It’s a breath-taking sight.

—Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and certified creativity coach, who loves seeing Arizona from her motorcycle, Suzie Lightning.

Image: pics4.city-data.com/cpicv/vfiles7160.jpg

Bike Dump

There is an old saying among motorcycle riders that if you haven’t dumped your bike yet, you will. And after eight years of riding, I dumped mine today. A few days ago, my replacement helmet arrived, and I had it on. The full-head one I got a few months ago had a defective hinge, and after three weeks of trying to fix it, they gave me a new one. New helmets are notoriously tight, and I already had a headache. My glasses were slightly askew and my peripheral vision was distorted. It made objects at the edge of my vision seem closer.

Image from www.brownpinay.com

We got gas and after filling up, I was walking the bike backwards to ride into the street. (Motorcycles don’t have reverse gears, you sit on them and push with your feet.) There were two trucks blocking the way to ride straight ahead, so I was pushing back, watching behind for cars pulling into the station. A truck roared past on one side, and a car was pulling in on the other, so I turned the bike at a sharp angle. The back tire hit one of the big refilling lids and stopped, and I gave a powerful push to get the back wheel over the edge.

I now had a back wheel resisting, a front wheel turned at a sharp angle and a bike that wasn’t  moving. A motorcycle in motion wants to stay upright, but when it stops moving, it wants to lie down. One more push, I thought, and my foot slipped on a grease slick. My left leg no longer held up its half of the weight, and in slow motion, the bike tipped over with me on it.

I smacked into the cement apron of the gas station with my shoulder and elbow and my 500-pound bike fell on top of my left leg and foot. That left my right foot and leg free to kick the kill switch to turn off the engine. A bike that’s over on one side will leak gas, and you don’t want to keep the engine running.

My husband saw me go over, and so did the motorist in the car that had been coming into the gas station. They both came running and pulled the bike off me. My husband turned the ignition key and pulled it out.

Roll back the clock an hour. I wanted to go for a ride on this perfect day with a big blue sky and no wind. I’d been up since about 6 a.m. and it was 2 p.m. I could get in a ride and come back and work for another three or four hours. But it meant changing from at-home clothes to riding clothes–heavy jeans, over-the-ankle boots, protective jacket with elbow, shoulder and back inserts, gloves with gel pads in the palms, and the full-head helmet. It takes time to put all that on, and I wondered if I needed all this stuff. I hate all the effort it takes to go from sandals, slacks and T-shirt to full motorcycle gear. I grumbled when I put it on. Arizona doesn’t have a helmet law, and I get a lot of flack from riders in flip-flops and shorts. But I own my business, I’m my only employee, and if something happens to me, my business stops. So I put it all on.

Back to the gas station. The guys pulled the bike off me. My boot protected my foot from both the weight and heat. My jacket protected my elbow and shoulder. My helmet would have protected my head, but I pulled it hard to the right and my head never touched the ground. Don’t want to scratch that new helmet.

So, after testing my ankle and knee, I rolled back up off the pavement, and checked the bike over. I’ll have to have the handlebars adjusted and the side mirror re-set, but I got back on the bike and took a ride. I’ll be stiff tomorrow–after all, I’m not a biker chick, I’m more a biker hen, but I’ll be back at work, no worse for wear.

And the next time I grumble about all that gear, I’ll grin when I think of how easy it was to roll over and push off the pavement and stand up. And I’ll be grateful for every piece of it.

–Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach who loves riding motorcycle through the Sonoran desert mountains. She’s also a writer and a communication trainer who runs workshops in ideaglyph journaling.

Creative Boundaries: Full-Head Helmet

You hear it all the time–women complaining that their husband gave them golf shoes or a garbage disposal for a birthday, when it wasn’t at all what they wanted. I lucked out. I got exactly what I wanted–a full-head helmet. This is an odd request for someone with claustrophobia. But then again, it’s not your average full-head helmet–it has a clear face shield, an additional slide-down tinted shield that’s retractable with one hand. The front of the helmet unlocks with one hand and moves up and over the top of the helmet.

Full head helmet with plain and sun shield

Why would I want this? Several practical reasons: it doesn’t rain here much, so there is always dust on the roads. Small rocks stay on the road and get tossed into your face. A three-quarters helmet leaves the bottom quarter of your face unprotected. I’d finish rides and have a film of greasy dirt from my upper lip to my chin and several small cuts.

We also have crunchy bugs here in the desert (crunchy bugs are the ones who have a chitin carapace to protect their wings) and they hurt at 60 mph.

Full-head helmets are also useful in the case of an accident. They keep your nose and jaw from being crushed, and they keep more skin on your face. Useful. As my brain is the part I need most for my business, I wanted the full-head helmet. I worked for weeks to ease into it without claustrophobic panic. This model has a larger face opening, so I have complete peripheral vision. It was the helmet for me. Even in a state that has no helmet laws.

And, of course, I began to think of the full-head helmet and creativity. Sometimes we have to give ourselves boundaries, hard-edged fences, to function. Sure, it would be easier to write the sucker-punch, highly-emotional piece. And it’s easier to say “it’s a real experience, so it’s valid to write it.” We can avoid the hard work of editing, choosing, forcing ourselves to write with the easy excuse of “it’s real to me.”

Writers need to demand more from themselves than even their readers do. It’s too easy to reach for the emotional flash. But it won’t last. Half an hour later, the reader will be hungry for meaning again. And you will want to write something that is meaningful, powerful, energizing. So put on the full-head helmet and get busy. The world is hungry for a gravel-rattling ride of writing.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer. She also teachers others how to write and keep journals and is a certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com

Suck it up and drive

Life is hard on the art show circuit. When a customer came into my booth and looked at my art and said, “I wish I had your life. You get to make your art all the time. What a wonderful, easy life!” I’d smile and say, “It’s wonderful to work on what you love for a living.” While that was true, it was not always what I wanted to say.
I didn’t say, “Try standing on your feet on cement floors for three days in a row, 10 hours a day, then make sure you find healthy food.”
I never said, “If you haven’t done 21 shows in 52 weeks, eaten Thanksgiving dinner with strangers, loaded your art and the booth into your van during a snowstorm, thunderstorm or in 95-degree heat, while the regulations make you park half a mile away, you don’t get to talk.”
I thought it all, but I never said it. I chose the life of an artist, and that means I chose all the consequences with it. Including “Suck it up and drive.”

Maybe your family had a similar saying. It means, “Stop complaining and get on with what needs to be done.” It means you have to do what needs to be done, even if you don’t feel like it, are tired, sick, or have a broken bone. I’ve loaded my booth and art into a van, a four-hour strenuous job, after standing up for three days. Then, exhausted and sweaty, I’ve driven four hours to get closer to the next show before I look for a hotel. I’ve set up with duct tape covering a cut that needed two stitches, with a 102-degree fever, with an arm in a cast.

Suck it up and drive. It’s serious. It’s your life and your work. When you work for yourself, there are perks and there are tough spots.

Honda VLX

During our move, I saw my husband do a “suck it up and drive” that astonished me. At 4 p.m. we realized that all our possessions might fit in the truck, but not the motorcycles. We couldn’t leave them behind, having a company trailer them out is prohibitively expensive, and the closing was the next day, so we couldn’t leave them overnight. Nothing to do but rent another truck, one with a ramp.

A rental truck van has a ramp, but it’s about 3 feet wide, angles up at about 45 degrees and is tough to walk up, let alone push a 500-pound bike up. My husband and his friend Don considered the situation, then angled the truck so the ramp sat on the sidewalk, reducing the angle to about 35 percent. Before you think this sounds easy, remember that the steepest hill you’ve ever driven over on a paved road is not more than 16 degrees.

Honda Shadow Spirit

My husband’s job was to drive three motorcycles (our two and Don’s) up that ramp. At 11 o’clock at night. Because it was parked on our walkway, there was no run-up. My husband had to gun the engine, drive it up a swaying, 3-foot wide ramp, and then brake. The truck was not the big 26-footer, it was considerably smaller. I saw him start to sweat. On the first run, the engine died. A bike that’s moving forward stays upright. A bike that stops wants to lie down. This was my bike, at 504 pounds dry, and the way you steady it is to put your feet down on the ground. Except the ramp was narrow, and his feet missed. He has an amazing body-mind connection, so he let the bike roll backward until his feet touched the ground. I could see his heart pounding through his soaking T-shirt.

Moving via rental truck

But he did it. Not once, but three times. He did not complain. The second and third bikes had a lot less space to maneuver, because there were already bikes in the way. He loaded all three bikes without a scratch to any of them. It was the best “Suck it up and drive” I’ve ever seen.

Don locked them into the rack he’d built, and strapped them in so they wouldn’t move. He loosened the handlebars so they wouldn’t hit each other on the trip.

My husband didn’t brag, didn’t complain, didn’t tell me I owed him. In a marriage that survived the decision to start over more than once, made it through each of our decisions to leave the corporate life and open a business, undergo a cross-country move, live apart for 10 months, have me go ahead and start my business, support him when he gets here and has to start up his business, there is too much “owe me” for either one to tally. The next day, he climbed in the 26-foot van, Don into the bike van, and they headed West. As I write this, they are in Oklahoma, still driving West, four days later. They have another three days ahead of them.

We made the decision to move to have a better life. To enjoy the years we have left. To enjoy creativity in very different ways. And to do that, you have to suck it up and drive.

Riding into Creativity

The book I’m working on is about creativity. And motorcycle riding. Two things I indulge in, love, and find closely related.

After more than half a year without riding, I threw my leg over Suzie Lightning, my motorcycle, and powered her up. I was a little concerned–a lot can be forgotten in eight months, and the feel of familiarity is surely one of them.

The previous chapters of the book linked creativity to riding the bike. There are the general concepts, and a few specifics, even a Zen koan to seal the creative practice. This time it was different. Would I remember the intricate balance of clutch (left hand), shift (left foot), front brake (right hand), throttle (also right hand) back brake ( right foot)? What if I forgot? What if that intricate meshing didn’t happen and I rotated myself over the handlebars?

None of that happened. Previous posts had linked creativity to bike riding. This was bike riding linked to creativity. You don’t forget. It comes back. I rolled the bike backwards down the driveway, straightened it out, pushed my left foot down till I heard the “thunk” that let me know I was in first gear, and headed out.

Yes, there was traffic. But even in traffic, even on a hot day, it was worth the drive to the parkway where it curves along the Potomac, where the trees are impossibly green, where the air is wet and smells of mimosa, wet cement, construction, and the river. There is a sense of freedom and openness. There is a sense of concentration and being in the moment. And there is a sense of joy and fearlessness that is the same when creativity washes over you and when you take the corner, leaning and accelerating so the bike and the rider are the same thing.

—Quinn McDonald rides a motorcycle in Washington DC, and on the Sonoran desert floor in the Southwest. She is a certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com  (c) 2008 All rights reserved.

Creativity Lessons from My Motorcycle (Jan. 08)

I was grumbling about all the chrome on the bike. Not a fan of shiny, polish-needing parts on anything, I was using a toothbrush to clean the wheels of the bike. No, I’m not a neat-freak, but the bike is black and chrome, and it had started to look unkempt, insect-spotted and dusty. So I was polishing, wiping, washing and toothbrush- wielding. It felt like the whole bike was made of chrome.

Dan rolled up in the driveway behind me.
“What’s new?” he asked, getting off his bike.
“Polishing up Suzie Lightning, then going for a ride,” I said.
He considered the cloud cover and said, “Every minute you spend polishing that thing, you aren’t riding it. And you bought it to ride, not polish.”
He was right, but I said, “Gotta keep it clean.”
“Sure,” he agreed, “but you can keep it clean at night or when it’s cold. Take advantage of what you have.”

The same is true of creative work. Artists and writers can spend a lot of time on prep work, and never get to the actual writing or art. Cleaning the studio, the house, doing laundry all are important, but the wrong time to do them is when it is time to do creative work.

Leave the cleaning for a time when you aren’t creatively charged or know that you have just enough time to do one load of laundry. Life is short, your creativity is calling you. Go answer.

Image of all-chrome bike: www.motorbiker.org

–Quinn McDonald is a trainer in business communications and a certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2008 All rights reserved.