What Happens at a Writing Retreat?

The Madeline Island School of Arts

“What’s all this about deep writing?” asked a client. “Why do I need to go on a retreat to write?” Going on a writing (or art) retreat is one of the biggest gifts you can give your creative spirit. Here’s a peek at what will happen at the Madeline Island School of the Arts this July 22 to July 26:

You arrive at Duluth, Minnesota and catch a van to Madeline Island, next to the cluster of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The van takes you to the ferry in Bayfield, Wisconsin. (About 1 hour and 45 minutes). From Bayfield, you’ll take a ferry to Madeline Island (about 30 minutes).  The van takes you to the front door of the school.

The weather in July will be about 73 F in the daytime and 55 F at night. You get around the island by walking or bicycle, although you can also bring a car or rent a scooter or bicycle. By the time you arrive, you’ve already become used to the peace and quiet.

You’ll find your room and check out the classroom, and then explore the island. The next day, you’ll meet me in the classroom for Metaphor and Magic: Mixed Media Conversations with Your Inner Critic.  The first day, we will talk about why you came, what you hope to get out of deep writing and expressive art. We’ll talk about the project we are going to work on–the writing, the art, the free-form pages, how we will make, gather and carry them, how to use the pages in brainstorming, planning, choosing ideas to follow.

You don’t have to know how to draw or write to take this class, you just have to bring your self, your experiences, your questions about what it is you are meant to do.

You will have brought your Inner Critic, and you can expect him (or her) to show up and yap. This class is about confronting your Inner Critic, taking on the voice of “never good enough” with the Inner Heroes you will discover over the next five days.

On that first day we will learn to trust each other, to make those first tentative experiments in meeting kindred souls who are also seeking connection.

On that first day we will also make Monsoon Papers and talk about who we are, who we wish we were, what we need to leave behind. In the afternoon, we will do our first deep writing exercise–a kind of writing that lets you get to the heart of who you are and how you would like to be heard. You may suddenly cry, or laugh, or discover a part of you that’s been hiding at the edge of your vision. Expect to discover yourself as you discover the island.

In the evening, you will explore the island and the restaurants available.

For the fest of the time, we will spend mornings together, learning a new writing technique and a new art technique. We will experiment and explore and uncover our Inner Heroes.

In the afternoon, you can explore the island, find a place to write, or return to the classroom and try out what you learned that morning. I’ll also be available for private creativity coaching sessions. (There is no extra charge for using the classroom or the coaching).

On some days, we will share our ideas and our work, to learn from each other, to form the connections that deep writing and deep art encourage.

On the 25th of July, we will begin to gather our free-form pages and discover the many uses they offer. Sorting and creating spreads like you would Tarot cards, you will learn to use your newly discovered voice, your strength, your creativity.

Your time on the island can be a magical time of healing, of soul retrieval, of refreshment.

Please join me there for an unforgettable experience. The class tuition is $425, and you can register at MISA’s page with the class description. Most of your other questions will be answered on this page.

–Quinn McDonald is starting to plan for the metaphor and magic. She’s packing quite a bit of magic.

 

Collage and Perspective

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Working on another letter-and-number collage, I made a few decisions. Just letters and numbers is tedious. More color is needed to keep the work visually interesting. So I added maps pieces for mountains. But something wasn’t right. The piece looked … Continue reading →

Designing a Poetry Class

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The research is done, and the poetry-writing class is taking shape. It’s going to be an online class, and it’s going to include information and exercises on traditional forms before we explore more free-form styles. As I was thinking of … Continue reading →

Collage by Numbers

Words and letters are important to me. They shape my world, they help me see what others feel. And I almost always use some version of words in my art.

When I combine the love of collage with the love of letters, I got an interesting result. A collage made entirely of letters. OK, a few numbers, too.

It was in interesting experiment. It was fun to find the small and bold letters and figure out how to use them for detail and shadow.

I don’t want to continue this type of collage, because, odd as it sounds from someone who loves monochromatic work as much as I do, I would miss the color after a while. But meanwhile, I have another pear to add to the collection!

Here are a few other pears I’ve done:

Journal page with Maya Angelou’s pear recipe

Pears, watercolor pencil on journal page

Pear on free-standing journal page.

Pear mosaic on free-standing journal page

--Quinn McDonald does not feel compelled to move on to apples. Yet.

Tearing Paper for Collage

A few weeks ago, I sent Elizabeth St. Hillaire Nelson some Monsoon Papers. During her collage class, she told several stories about people who sent her papers and how they could show up in a collage of hers. I love sharing Monsoon Papers, so off they went. And then, today, I got an envelope of colored papers back from Elizabeth. Colorful, printed, wild, interesting. And after a week of  doing paperwork and getting the work done, I wanted to play. Perfect excuse! Off to the studio I ran. It’s still got boxes from last week’s demoing I did for Arizona Art Supply. I pushed them aside and got to work.

It felt right to make the same kind of collage we did in class–almost. I inked the backgrounds instead of collaging them. But I did enjoy shading the flowers by using different colors of paper. And I loved ripping into the papers. I still have a little trouble getting the shape right, because I tear left-handed, which can confuse me.

And of course I had to do another pear. I think there are art least two in the book, although I made four. Maybe I’ll frame all the different pears, but meanwhile I have two more loose-leaf journal pages. Now I can use Barbara Abercrombie’s book from yesterday’s review to choose a prompt and fill up the back of the pages!

Hmmm, looking at the pear, I want to take that flower in the center, meant to be a highlight, and push it down one-quarter of an inch. The nice thing about collage is that you can paper over paper.

Thanks, Elizabeth, these papers are already fun!

-–Quinn McDonald is a sucker for collage. She’s still working on white-on-white collages, but a burst of color cheers her up. She still has to clean up the studio, though.

The Commonplace Journal

The instant Kaisa from Valkoinenponi mentioned it, I recognized the Commonplace Journal.  For me, it was a book I had seen before, with the words Vade Mecum printed on the cover, that my father used. It was a small notebook, and he took notes in it. About the weather, numbers and measurements he needed to remember, quotes on prices and on wisdom. Vade Mecum means “Come with Me” in Latin, and the book went most places with my father, the original life-long learner.

In the early days of printing, Vade Mecum became a name for books that published information–general or specific–in a variety of topics. They contained medical information, wieghts and measurements, and recipes for healing, cooking, even alchemy.

Vade Mecum had another name, starting in the 15th century: Commonplace books and Zibaldone. These notebooks were a combination of a scrapbook and a note-taking device. Students who were studying by apprenticeship would sketch or write information for their professional learning into the books. As the students became masters, they would allow the next generation to learn from these books. In the 1600s, most college students learned from the professors through keeping a Commonplace Book. Oxford University and Harvard taught via Commonplace Book well into the 20th century.

When I was in college, I created a Commonplace timeline in my room. Every time I learned something in one field, I’d mark it on the timeline–when it happened, who did the work. I’d add notes from other fields. By the middle of the year, I could tell you that while Bach was studying music, Peter the Great was building St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and that 9,000 people died in England in a huge windstorm with gusts that reached 120 mph. The timeline wrapped around the room. The arts, music, science, literature–all trailed around the room, helping me understand the relationship between politics, culture, and science.

I still keep a Commonplace Book. It holds quotes, book titles, ideas. I wish it looked more like Count Laszlo’s private diary in The English Patient (the 1996 movie made of Michael Ondaatje’s book). You can see a glimpse of it at the 4:00 mark in the trailer. But it is, well, commonplace. It is also the reason that I can’t keep an art journal without words as the origination source. I understand books without words, just colors or images when others do them, but for me, words create the book. And the image.

I love the idea of important pieces of learning and experience caught in one book. Paging through it, I can remember so much of where I was and what I was learning.  You can start your own, but if you already have one, please leave a comment about what you keep in it.

--Quinn McDonald is a romantic at heart. But don’t tell anyone; it’s hard to be a level-headed creativity coach if people think you are a wild romantic.

Letters as Tools

Chefs have knives, carpenters have screwdrivers and saws, painters have canvas. Writers have letters and numbers. And so do journalers. I’ve long been fascinated by letterforms and shapes, by the rhythm of numbers and the flow of typefaces.

For a while, I had an ID bracelet that had the alphabet on it, along with the punctuation marks and the numbers from zero through nine. That, I realized, were the tools for everything I wrote. Twenty-six letters, 10 numbers, and six punctuation marks. It fit on a small bracelet, and all the speeches, letters, memos, bad news, good news and announcements in the English language were written with those. It was a humbling realization for a writer.

My art hinges on words and numbers, too. I’ve always expressed myself with writing, and letters and numbers have always been important in art, whether in found poetry or in collage.

Now I’m exploring writing as a background for collage. Part of this is an exercise in visual poetry, part of it is using writing as a collage element.

 

What I liked about the collage I did is that I wrote part of the background upside down, so it doesn’t make you want to read it, it’s just a pattern. The large words “Day” and “Night” complete the idea of “dream” and writing down your daydreams or your night dreams makes sense. But what is almost hidden is the small phrase “they are assembled and already in existence,” which completes the cross bars of the A, G, and H in the words Night and Day. It’s a reward for spending time looking closely at the collage. Another discovery.

This feels like a starting point. Again.

If you’d like to explore your journal’s content in a way that includes both art and writing, as well as confronting your inner critic, please join me on May 18 and 19 at the Minneapolis Center for Book Arts or July 22 through 26 in Madeline Island, Wisconsin.

-–Quinn McDonald teaches what she does. Sometimes she knows more than other times, but she is always curious about what’s out there.

Stenciling Art Journal Pages

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Stencils have never really thrilled me; I’ve never believed I knew how to use them. While experimenting this weekend, I discovered what I’d missed–a simple, effective stencil technique that makes great art journal pages or, trimmed down and layered on … Continue reading →

Fun With Splash Inks (Part 2)

Splash Inks are acrylic inks invented by Karen Elaine and made by Yasutomo. I’ve posted on Splash inks previously. Today, Arizona Art Supply had a class in learning how to use the inks. Kari Foteff

Senior Account Manager Kari Foteff (L) from Strathmore, and inventor Karen Elaine.

from Strathmore Papers (L) and Karen Elaine were there and they taught a wicked good class. Strathmore papers were the first papers I loved when I was a papermaker, and it was great meeting someone who gets to work with Strathmore papers much of the time.

It’s fun meeting an inventor, particularly one who is modest and never mentioned her time on the Carol Duvall show. ( A popular show on the DIY Network several years ago) or the process of invention, just what the inks can do.

There are four inks, and they follow the CMYK colors: Cyan (blue) Magenta, Yellow and Black. You can mix them into over a hundred different colors.

We mixed several colors, and Kay, next to me, did a whole sampler of colors.

We then masked off a card and, using a stencil, scraped Golden’s regular gel (gloss) over the stencil and allowed the gel to dry, creating a resist.  We then mixed colors and applied them over the card. Kay did an attractive multi-colored card:

And I tried for a batik effect:

I’ll be demonstrating the inks at Arizona Art Supply’s booth the Women’s Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center April 27 and 28, 2013.

Karen Elaine helped me learn how to do some paper marbling with the basic colors. I have some more work to do (mixing new colors), but I’m really pleased with the basic marbling which is super easy:

And works with more complicated combing patterns, too.

Even the second pick-up works well:

I made these on cardstock, but you can also make them on sized watercolor paper. You can use them as art journal backgrounds, or just write in the lighter areas. You can use Golden’s regular gel as a resist and then write on it with a sharpie. Lots of experimentation still to go, but I’m having a lot of fun with Splash Inks.

-–Quinn McDonald has inky fingers again.

Disclaimer: I purchased the inks myself. I am receiving no compensation to blog about them.

Journal: Lines or No Lines?

These lined ledger journals are available at Staples.

People who keep journals have a strong preference for using a journal with lines or one without lines. There are even journals with alternating lined and unlined pages.

For years, I’ve been a no-line journaler. No matter what the journal was for (and I keep more than one), it had to be unlined. I’m changing my mind. Maybe.

Here are the journals I keep:

1. Client notes, telephone numbers, deadlines, to-do list journal. Unlined. I use Moleskine soft-covers with vibrant cover colors. When they are full, I write the dates started and ended on the cover and keep them. They help me remember where I was and what I did when. Good for taxes and how long a past project took.

2. Sketch journal. Unlined watercolor paper. I use ink and watercolors to do sketches,  small collages and other design work. This unlined journal keeps me from having to fight perspective.

3. Capture journal. This is the one I just switched to a lined journal. I write down brain dumps, ideas, emotions, class ideas, problems with solutions, in this one. I write only on the right side for the first pass. Every now and then I go through the journal and “distill” it. I find insights or ideas and write them on the left page. Sometimes I highlight or add another thought on the left side as well. This distilled material winds up on the free-standing pages.

A selection of my journals.

4. Free-standing pages. These journal pages have art on one side and writing on the other. I’ve been making them for years and they are all the same size. They are the result of a combination of the  distill pages’ lessons and the artwork it inspires.

5. Commonplace Book. I didn’t know this type of book had a name till Kaisa from Vakloinenponi mentioned it. This is the book I use for quotes, well-written sentences, poems, titles and authors of books I want to remember, even articles I’ve cut out of a magazine. The history of Commonplace Books deserves a whole blog post on its own.

6. Nature journal. This is an unlined journal. I am finishing up a big, bulky book with rough pages. I keep notes on the weather, when  my fruit trees bloom or set fruit, or unusual events like this year’s killing freeze. I keep notes about trimming and fertilizing trees, birds I see, and general nature notes. I’d like to switch to a journal I can also sketch in. That’s the next one.

Using a lined journal helps the lines stay even, which helps me write faster and concentrate on the words and meaning-making instead of what the page looks like. The even lines also help me keep my handwriting the same size, which makes it easier to find a word or a specific idea when I hunt through the pages to distill the information.

It’s a new idea for me, but I’m warming to it. I will keep a mix of journals always, and it’s good to switch to a new size or type to see if it changes your journaling habits.

How many journals do you keep and do you prefer lines or no lines?

—Quinn McDonald may have to take a 12-step program to reduce the number of journals she keeps. If she does, she’ll probably keep notes in a journal. Oh, wait. . .